TNAG-2329-FCO40-3373-Hong-Kong-contacts-with-academics-and-writers-1991 — Page 135

Here I ask the reader to step back and look at the process in the perspective of all I have tried to outline so far:-

(a) In a well-ordered system where the asylum-seeker was properly prepared at the beginning, and where the account given to the immigration officer has been properly checked, the material before the Review Board could be looked at to see if on the given facts, the asylum-seeker is entitled to refugee status. This would be a clear and relatively straight-forward task. Today, however, the whole issue is opened up again by the RSRB in a way which may be neither cost-effective nor procedurally sound. At present, this ability to open everything up is a safeguard: but it is less of a safeguard than a review based on a reliable initial two stages. And it may be more expensive. But the scheme cannot be changed fairly without changes to the earlier stages too.

(b)

(c)

Texts I have seen concerning the Review stage reflect a possibly ambiguous attitude to its function. But I only say "possibly", for I am not quite sure how to interpret them. On reading a speech by the Chairman of the RSRB dated 28th August, 1990, I was struck by the passage:-

"The Board is not obliged to accept every uncorroborated

claim made to it and uses these interviews to investigate and test claims in its attempts to assist the Asylum Seeker1in his efforts to be recognised as a genuine refugee.'

In other words, the/Board may enquire. Yet, in a letter by Mr. Geoffrey Barnes to Amnesty International dated 28th December, 1989, the then Secretary of Security wrote:-

"In general, the facts as given by the asylum-seeker are

accepted by the Board and it is only if there are material inconsistencies in those facts that the Board will interview the asylum-seeker. In the majority of cases, the Board is required only to determine whether on the given facts, the asylum-seeker is entitled to refugee status.

I suspect that in practice, the investigation and testing of claims could exemplify an approach to credibility which amounts to hunting for contradictions. To look for contradictions on the basis of a safe record is one thing; to look for them on the basis of a record which is unchecked seems to me to be quite another. This is not to say that there should not be rigorous testing for credibility. There should be; but done in the right way, and safely. Article 197 of the UN Handbook provides:-