§ Lord Hyltonasked Her Majesty's Government:
Why they appear unwilling to accept the considered opinion of the United Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees' London Office that Selahatin Ozberk of Adana, Turkey, who arrived in England on 31st May 1989, is a genuine refugee.
Earl FerrersUnder the 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees, the practice is that it is the responsibility of the individual signatory state to decide whether applicants meet the criteria for recognition as refugees. In this case, after recognition was refused, the applicant twice sought and was refused leave by the High Court for judicial review of that decision before the London Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) intervened.
While any representations from that source are always—like the original applications themselves—considered with particular care, the representations did not in this instance include any information which had not previously been before the Home Office or the High Court, nor did they otherwise appear to identify grounds for accepting that the convention criteria were satisfied. Although regretting, therefore, that a difference of opinion should persist, the Government has co-operated with the UNHCR's London office in their efforts to arrange for Mr. Ozberk to go to a country other than Turkey (and accordingly he left for Italy at 1 p.m. this afternoon).