The AIRE Centre (Advice on
Individual Rights in Europe) is a London-based charity providing free legal
advice on European human rights law and European Union law. The vision of the
AIRE Centre is to promote awareness of European
law rights and assist marginalised individuals and those in vulnerable
circumstances to assert those rights.
The AIRE Centre
has acted as a representative and intervener in more than 120 cases before the
European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and 15 cases before the Court of Justice
of the European Union (CJEU), and many cases before the UK Supreme Court.
The AIRE Centre
does not engage in campaigning
In the
particular French context, the AIRE Centre became involved on the legal scene
through a third party written submission before the British court of Appeal in
the Secretary of State for the Home Department v ZAT & Ors [2016]
EWCA Civ 810 (02 August 2016).
The AIRE Centre also
got involved on the ground through some work I carried out in different
circumstances in France, and this is what I would like to share in this note.
The BHRC
Fact-finding Mission and its Report
Thanks to Mrs
Nuala Mole, I became involved in this project working with a group of barristers
from Garden Court Chambers and the Bar Human Rights Committee (BHRC).
The BHRC carried
out a two-day fact finding mission in March 2016 in two camps in Northern
France, namely Calais and Grande Synthe, the latter being a camp run by Médecins
Sans Frontières (MSF). Please note that these camps based are unofficial
and therefore there was no official presence of the United Nations High
Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
The BHRC mission
was undertaken by two executive members of the BHRC and me, acting as an
interpreter, translator and researcher.
The BHRC met
with a wide range of organisations in order to obtain as much factual
information as possible on the legal and human rights issues which arose in the
camps since the beginning of 2015. The organisations with which we met are:
- Refugee Rights Data Project
- Médecins Sans Frontières
- The Legal Advice Shelter
- United Nations High
Commission for Refugees
- Help
Refugees UK
The mission focused on the
endemic and systemic police brutality in and outside the camps against the
displaced population residing in said camps and the excessive use of tear gas
contrary to international law.
The police brutality is mainly
caused by the CRS (Compagnies Républicaines
de Sécurité,
founded in 1944), also known as the riot police. Supported by the Legal Shelter
(La Cabane Juridique), the displaced population, victim of this
brutality, have managed to lodge complaints before the Prosecutor of the
Republic at the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Boulogne-sur-Mer. The
Legal Shelter recorded more than 70 complaints. Challenges faced by this team
are multiple but the transient residential
nature of the victims means that many have moved on before the hearings.
During a recent trip in Calais, I actually met with the lawyer in charge of
these files, who confirmed there has been no convictions reached even when the
evidence provided was very strong e.g. videos or pictures, and medical
certificates. In a recent decision, the Tribunal did not reach a conviction as
“the facts of violence were a legitimate use of force in accordance with the
law, provided that such use of force respects the principle of proportionality”.
There are also currently some
ongoing investigations before the Inspection Générale de La Police Nationale (The Police of
the Police, IGPN); however, this is usually a very lengthy and bureaucratic
process.
Training of French Lawyers
On 4 April 2016, Nicola Braganza,
a UK barrister from Garden Court Chambers, decided to organise a training for
to both private French lawyers and NGOs caseworkers and lawyers in Calais. Ms
Braganza set up a team of UK barristers, solicitors and me, as a simultaneous
English/French interpreter to deliver this training on asylum process in the UK
and the Dublin Regulation 604/2013 of 26 June 2013 (Dublin III). The training
was well received and, as a result, collaboration between British and French
lawyers was envisaged. A further training was delivered on 16 September 2016. 
Training of French lawyers
appears necessary due to the current challenges they are facing: there are more
than 150 unaccompanied minors who declare having family present in the UK, and
other many more adult individuals who prefer to claim asylum in the UK. There
are many reasons why potential asylum seekers prefer to claim asylum in the UK:
- "I do not want to stay in
France for the same reason I did not want to stay in my home country. They do
not treat us like humans here, they treat us like animals," as reported by
a 35-year-old from Sudan who spoke to Barbara Tasch, a Business Insider
journalist in 2016
(http://uk.businessinsider.com/calais-refugees-why-asylum-france-britain-2016-2)
- Police brutality – as mentioned
above – is another major motivating factor for people to wish to leave France.
Tensions are currently high – in the wait of the dismantling of the camps –
and clashes between the police forces
and the population regularly occur.
- One of the most important
reasons, many inhabitants of the camps already have families in the UK, and
speak the language.
- The general opinion among the camps’
inhabitants is that in Britain they will be treated with common decency,
respect, and would not live in such deplorable conditions.
- Also, the vast majority of
associations and volunteers helping the refugees in the camps are from the UK,
not France, despite the camp being located in Calais.
- Austere job prospects, harsh
employment laws which make it very difficult for people to find jobs,
regulations that prevent refugees from seeking employment for months and
sometimes years, and growing hostility towards refugees are all motivating
people to seek asylum in the UK rather than in France.
It is important to note that for nationals of
Syrian, Iraqi and Afghani backgrounds, the success rate of asylum claims in
France is very high, according to the AIDA report for January to September 2015
(http://www.asylumineurope.org/reports/country/france):
-
Iraq: 98.6%
-
Syria: 96.4%
-
Afghanistan: 84.2%
Conclusion
and Humble Suggestions
- To
answer the question asked by the organisers, I do believe that there is
more than one crisis.
Focusing on the French context,
one will notice challenges at different levels: At the local and regional
levels, local and regional authorities are under tremendous pressure to close
the camps and decisions are leading national charities and French lawyers to
start legal challenges. The CAOs (Centres d’Accueil et d’Orientation) at
the departmental level cannot host all the unaccompanied minors currently
present in the camps as set out in the French legal framework.
The situation in Calais concerns
10,000 displaced persons according to NGOs based on the ground (and 6,000
individuals according to French authorities). This figure is the object of
important political and media attention, and has
become a divisive and polarising issue in French public opinion. One can
wonder to what extent this “topic” of the current refugee crisis is used to
disguise important economic and societal issues that France is has been facing
for years, and particularly the high rate of unemployment that is currently
standing at 9,9 % of the active population.
- Humble
Suggestions:
· The European Union needs to
support the countries which are at the forefront of the refugee crisis in a
sustainable and efficient way.
·
Outside
of Europe, Lebanon and Jordan need greater support to cope the influx of Syrian
refugees. They are both currently hosting 1,689,913 refugees as per data collected
by UNHCR on September 2016.(http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/regional.php)
· The European Union could support
the provision of training to legal professionals in countries where the need is
acute e.g. France, Greece, and Italy.
· Temporary educational facilities
for children and unaccompanied minors should also be provided so as to ensure their right to an education as
enshrined in both international and national law.
· Last but not least, the civil
society throughout this crisis has adopted an exemplary attitude when the
States did not fully engage with the displaced populations as per their
international obligations under the 1951 Geneva Convention. We should carry on
practising greater solidarity in this time of humongous human and structural
challenges in Europe. I felt compelled to mention the exceptional example of
MOAS (Migrant Offshore Migrant Station). Christopher and Regina Catrambone, two
young entrepreneurs and humanitarians, founded the Malta-based MOAS after
witnessing a lack of response to hundreds of individuals drowning in October
2013 off the Italian island of Lampedusa. Feeling compelled to act, they used
their private funds to launch MOAS just four months later. They purchased the
40-metre (130-foot) Canadian fishing boat MY Phoenix and converted it into a
search-and-rescue vessel with a trained search-and-rescue crew, a pair of
six-metre (20-foot) rigid hull inflatable boats and two remotely piloted
Schiebel Camcopter S-100s. In August 2014, MOAS became the first private rescue
ship in the central Mediterranean when it began a 60-day operation off the
coast of Libya. By the time the operation ended in late October, the MOAS team
had performed 10 rescues and administered aid to more than 3,000 migrants.
·
In
Germany, hundreds of asylum-seekers donating their time as part of Germany’s
Federal Volunteers Service, a nationwide, government-run volunteer program.
Known in German as the Bundesfreiwilligendienst, the program is open to adults
of all ages who want to spend a year giving back to their communities.
Volunteers work 20 hours a week and receive a small remuneration. Hassan, 19,
is one of tens of thousands of volunteers who are helping young newcomers
settle into their fresh surroundings. He, too, is an asylum-seeker, having fled
violence near his home in Ghazni, Afghanistan, last summer and made his way to
Germany. Katharina Lumpp, UNHCR Representative for Germany declares that “at
the core of UNHCR’s efforts to strengthen refugee integration is the idea of
community-based approaches”. “By working to identify community-driven solutions
and implementing these together, the refugee community’s own enormous
capacities and resilience are recognised and made use of.” Volunteers,
nicknamed ‘Bufdis’ in German, can choose how they want to help out. Some lend a
hand as an interpreter, or support newly-arrived children in schools and
kindergartens. Others, like Hassan, choose to volunteer as a youth worker.
(Source: http://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2016/10/57e92aa24/refugees-asylum-seekers-sign-offer-warm-welcome-germany.html?platform=hootsuite)
Zahra Hrifa, The AIRE Centre, Legal Caseworker
Sources – References
I
recommend attendees who would like to further their reading to check the
following documents:
• The
reports published by Refugee Rights Data Project (RRDP, a British NGO and
registered charity). RRDP aims to fill information gaps relating to refugees
and displaced people in Europe by conducting their own independent field
research. They are independent of any political ideology or religion. One of
the first reports entitled “The Long Wait” was published in April 2016. This
report is a result of 870 individuals interviewed (men, women, and children
representing 15% of the camp during that period) carried out within a week
after the demolition of the Southern part of the camp at the end of February
2016. This represents the largest data collection in Calais. It focuses on the
camp’s demographic composition, the living conditions and the police and civilian
brutality.
Four reports followed this first
publication:
• The
Other Camp report aims to fill in data gaps relating to refugees and displaced
people in Dunkerque. [Date of research: March and April 2016]
• Unsafe
Borderlands: This report aims to fill information gaps on women. It sheds light
on the specific adversities they face, including gender-based violence, absence
of safety and security and a lack of access to reproductive healthcare. [Date
of research: 20-26 February 2016]
• Still
Waiting: This report focuses on the questions “Why do you want to go to the UK?
and “what information is most important to you?” [Date of research: 4 July – 19
August 2016].
• The
Unknown Knowns: This account refers to five discrete settlements around Calais
and the living conditions within these smaller camps. It also raised serious
concerns about human rights violations and unmet humanitarian needs. [Date of
research: 23-27 June 2016].
• ACAT
(Action des Chrétiens pour l’Abolition de
la Torture (ACAT). ACAT is a Christian human rights NGO established in
1974. It is an association Loi 1901,
and is recognised of public interest (association
reconnue d'utilité publique).
• And,
finally, the report by Bournemouth University’s civic media hub and the Omega
research foundation can also be read.
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