Maybe Makosi will be lucky when her case is heard on the 20th October.
Zimbabwean wins asylum test case
Anti-Mugabe protester outside Zimbabwe Embassy, London
Refugees say they could be persecuted in Zimbabwe
A failed Zimbabwean asylum seeker has won his battle against deportation.
The unnamed man would be at risk of harm if he were returned to President Robert Mugabe's regime, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal has ruled.
The test case decision could now prompt a judicial review by the High Court of the government's policy of sending failed asylum seekers back to Zimbabwe.
The government accepts there are human rights abuses in the country, but not that every asylum seeker is at risk.
This judgement drives an entire coach and horses through [the asylum system] and leaves the entire system open to abuse
Immigration minister Tony McNulty
Tribunal chairman Mark Ockelton said the man, known only as 'A', had a "well-founded fear of persecution" if he was returned, even though his asylum claim had been "fraudulent" and his dealings with UK authorities "deliberately dishonest".
The very fact that he had spent time in the UK would put him at risk in his home country, he said.
"The fact that the appellant made a false claim, so generating the risk which would otherwise not have existed, does not alter the fact that the real risk of serious harm exists now," the ruling said.
'Starve myself'
Immigration minister Tony McNulty said the ruling put the government's whole asylum policy in question.
"The absolute sanctity of the 1951 convention at the root of the asylum system is that each and every individual case is decided on its own terms within its own circumstances.
"This judgement drives an entire coach and horses through that and leaves the entire system open to abuse."
The test case ruling has been welcomed by a fellow Zimbabwean, known only as Timba, who sought asylum in Britain in 2001 after his work as for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change led him to clash with the ruling Zanu-PF party.
He told BBC Radio Five Live the decision was "fantastic news," saying the threat of being returned to Zimbabwe had led him to go on hunger strike.
"At one time I was in detention, I thought of starving myself to death because I knew even if I were to go to there, I will die.
"I'd rather go as a corpse because there's no-one who can persecute a corpse, can torture a corpse."
Tim Finch, from the Refugee Council, also welcomed the ruling and said the judge could not have made his decision clearer.
"He said if you are a failed asylum seeker... you shouldn't be sent back to Zimbabwe because you face a real risk you will be persecuted just by virtue of coming here and trying to find a place of safety and sanctuary."
Protest outside the High Court
Campaigners were "delighted" with the ruling
He added the council believed the security services in Zimbabwe targeted people who were failed asylum seekers.
"Coming to Britain and claiming sanctuary here is regarded as treason by the Mugabe regime," he said.
Mr Ockelton said the tribunal may have taken a different view if failed asylum seekers returning to Zimbabwe were not so readily identified by UK officials.
Evidence from the Home Secretary suggested deportees were escorted onto planes and their papers handed over by UK officials to the air crew.
"At that point, it appeared to us that the respondent (the Home Secretary) ceased to have any very clear interest in what happened.
"We find the respondent's lack of interest in the process by which individuals that he returns to Zimbabwe are received by the Zimbabwean authorities rather alarming."
The findings criticised the Home Office's research into conditions in Zimbabwe and for the lack of evidence uncovered by a fact-finding delegation sent by the Government in September.
A ban on deportations to Zimbabwe, which had been in force for two years, was lifted last November.
Zimbabwean asylum seekers staged hunger strikes and public protests at immigration centres earlier this year.
Some 12,000 people from Zimbabwe claimed asylum in the UK between 2002 and 2004.
BBC
