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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, my understanding is that that is correct, but perhaps I may complete what I was about to say, because one will see the logic of what the adjudicators were talking about in terms of this offence. The adjudicators took into account the guidance in the UNHCR’s handbook—in particular, paragraph 158, which states: "““Whilst for the purposes of the present exclusion … it may be possible to overlook the fact that a refugee, not finding any other means of escape, may have evaded the border in a stolen car, decision will be more difficult when he has hijacked an aircraft … forced its crew, under threat of arms or with actual violence, to change destination in order to bring him to a country of refuge””. " The handbook goes on to state that, "““the question of exclusion under Article 1F(b) of an applicant who has committed an unlawful seizure of an aircraft will also have to be carefully examined in each individual case””." The adjudicators had regard to a background note issued in 2003, which suggested that among the issues requiring consideration in such circumstances was, "““whether the hijacking was a last and unavoidable recourse to flee from the danger at hand, that is, whether there were other viable and less harmful means of escape””." In addressing these issues, the adjudicators concluded that hijacking an aircraft is, of its nature, a serious crime. I do not suppose that any of us would dissent from that. Following the formulation established by the Judicial Committee, the adjudicators were also satisfied that this particular hijacking was not a political crime. This is relevant because the article is limited to non-political crimes. Finally, while acknowledging that there were, "““some mitigating circumstances leading to the decision to hijack the aircraft””," the adjudicators came to the view that there were, "““no serious grounds for concluding that the appellants were placed in such a position that they were compelled to carry out the hijacking nor were they under such pressure as to justify the hijacking””." There was no immediate danger of arrest and there were alternative routes by which they could have left the country. The adjudicators also concluded that, having chosen to escape from Afghanistan in this way, the appellants had no need to prolong the hijack. The aircraft landed first in Tashkent and then in Moscow before arriving in the UK. Those responsible for the hijacking could easily have claimed asylum in either country. There was no necessity to extend or repeat the offence by forcing the pilot to take off again and fly to a second and then a third destination. That, in brief, is why the adjudicators ruled as they did. It had nothing to do with the statutory interpretation of Article 1F, which had not been enacted at the time and which in any event relates to a different subsection. Nor did it have anything to do with the definition of a serious crime for the purposes of Article 33. I believe that the adjudicators were right to conclude that the Afghan hijackers were excluded by Article 1F of the refugee convention. They may have been fleeing from a terrible regime of which they did not approve, but there was no necessity to choose the manner of escape that they did or to threaten the lives and safety of the crew and the other passengers. Also, although this did not form part of the adjudicators’ reasoning, there was no justification for keeping the crew and the other passengers cooped up in the aircraft for another four days once they had landed in the United Kingdom. The noble Lord may regard the hijackers as victims but, in my view, the decision to exclude them from the convention was absolutely right. In the examples that I have given, we are not talking about a large number of people. The estimate is about 50. However, the examples that I have described, including the ones relating to South Africa and Darfur, illustrate the type of case where, in the Government’s view, the conduct of the person concerned means that they should not be put on a par with other foreign nationals in terms of their immigration status. If it were possible, we would want to remove them from the United Kingdom altogether. However, where that is not possible for human rights reasons, we say that, in certain limited circumstances, we should at the very least be able to deny them immigration leave and the benefits that flow from having such leave. On that basis, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.