House of Lords Condemns Kafkaesque UK Government

Mrs Chikwamba was ordered to go back to Zimbabwe and apply for entry clearance even although everyone accepted that the application would succeed and the requirement would have no beneficial effect for anyone. The the uk government could hardly deny that there would be serious deleterious consequences for her, her husband and her young daughter.

It was a jobsworth application of the rules that would have lead, in the words of Lord Scott of Foscote, to something that should not be allowed to happen. He said:

"...policies that involve people cannot be, and should not be allowed to become, rigid inflexible rules. The bureaucracy of which Kafka wrote cannot be allowed to take root in this country and the courts must see that it does not."

Remembering that the Court of Appeal had upheld the uk government's Kafkaesque approach, we must be very grateful that we have the House of Lords who unanimously cut through the crap. Lord Scott also thought that the lower courts (including the Court of Appeal) had approached the matter in a manner that was "clearly unreasonable and disproportionate" and was amazed that the application had got this far.

LORD BROWN OF EATON-UNDER-HEYWOOD (who has defeated my attempts to find a photograph of him) giving the lead judgment said this:

"Let me now return to the facts of the present case. This appellant came to the UK to seek asylum, met an old friend from Zimbabwe, married him and had a child. He is now settled here as a refugee and cannot return. No one apparently doubts that, in the longer term, this family will have to be allowed to live together here. Is it really to be said that effective immigration control requires that the appellant and her child must first travel back (perhaps at the taxpayer's expense) to Zimbabwe, a country to which the enforced return of failed asylum-seekers remained suspended for more than two years after the appellant's marriage and where conditions are "harsh and unpalatable", and remain there for some months obtaining entry clearance, before finally she can return (at her own expense) to the UK to resume her family life which meantime will have been gravely disrupted? Surely one has only to ask the question to recognise the right answer."

The appellate courts are clogged up with immigration appeals. Sometimes these appeals are hopeless. But sometimes, as here, it is the government decision making process that is utterly hopeless. A rational government would not pursue such matters and its Kafkaesque approach in this case should cause it shame. Fat chance!

See the title link for the full decision and backward links to the Court of Appeal decision.

But, another bloody nose for the uk government and its sychophantic, idle, gutless and anti-freeddom civil servants. Not a spine amongst any of them.