Fifteen years after the High Court
condemned the prosecution of refugees for using false documents in their quest
for a place of safety and parliament provided a statutory defence, they are
still being wrongly convicted and sent to prison.
[...]
Perhaps, rather than pointing an accusatory
finger at overworked defence solicitors, the appeal court should suggest to
parliament the simple legislative solution of inserting the statutory defence
into each enactment containing the offences to which it applies, to prevent
further miscarriages of justice. If, once this was done, prosecutors were still
prosecuting, lawyers still advising clients to plead guilty and magistrates
still convicting, then the much deeper problem of undoing the false equation
between refugees and illegality would have to be tackled.
