Britain’s Home Office is “monitoring the activities” of immigration lawyers, a minister has told parliament.
The Law Society Gazette of England and Wales reports that the admission has caused alarm among some lawyers, who question on what basis the British Government is tracking them.
Immigration minister Robert Jenrick told the House of the Commons that the government was keeping tabs on a “small number” of legal practitioners, although he declined to expand on how this monitoring was taking place.
The Gazette says that there have been no reports of any misconduct in relation to advice given to asylum-seekers arriving in Britain on small boats, and the Solicitors Regulation Authority is not understood to be prosecuting any individuals.
Minister quizzed on regulators
Jenrick had been asked by Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael to identify how many solicitors, advocates, and barristers had been reported by the Home Office to their respective regulators.
This followed an assertion by the minister that human-rights lawyers “abuse and exploit our laws at times”.
He later added: “The British public are looking on askance at the fact that individuals, mostly young males, are setting off from a demonstrably safe country, France, and soliciting human traffickers to ferry them across the channel, and they are invariably throwing their documents into the sea, so that they can exploit our human-rights laws.”
‘Sinister’
Lawyers quoted by the Gazette condemned the minister’s latest assessment of the role of lawyers in the asylum system, and questioned attempts to monitor their activities.
Robin Murray (former vice-chair of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association) described Jenrick’s statement as “very sinister”, and suggested that professional bodies should take this matter up with him.
Law Society of England and Wales President Lubna Shuja said that the organisation had noted the comment from Jenrick.
“The small boats problem is primarily about the government’s ability to process asylum claims effectively, the quality of its casework, and the narrowness of so-called ‘legal’ routes for asylum seekers.,” she stated.