BarTalk December 1999
Volume 11, Number 6

Limited resources impact process

Recent reports of hunger strikes and an incident of wrist-slashing by Fujian migrants have focused attention on how the migrants’ refugee claims are being managed. The BC Branch has serious concerns about the adequacy of those processes, and about the administrative and financial strain being placed upon the Legal Services Society and the Immigration and Refugee Board.

There are approximately 420 Fujian migrants being detained in provincial institutions in BC. The majority are in a facility in Prince George; the remainder at various locations in Vancouver, Surrey, Burnaby and in the Fraser Valley. These migrants have been in detention since the summer, when they first landed on Canadian soil, and will continue to be held in detention until their claims for refugee status are heard and determined.

To date, less than 100 claims have been determined. For the majority of the detained migrants, the hearing process has only recently commenced.

Of grave concern to BC immigration and refugee lawyers are policy decisions which have had a significant impact on processing of claims. These include decisions to: a) pursue continued detention of the migrants, b) place the administrative burden fully upon limited British Columbia resources; and c) detain the majority of migrants within a remote Prince George detention facility and locate proceedings there.

There are neither Immigration and Refugee Board tribunal facilities nor numbers of experienced immigration counsel in the Prince George region. Rather than providing for either long term or temporary detention of all claimants in the Vancouver region, the Immigration and Refugee Board has been compelled to assign six Board Members and associated staff to a temporary administrative facility being established in Prince George. This may facilitate the hearing of as few as three claims per day or as many as six claims per day, at best. Five claims will have to be completed daily to meet the deadline of February 15, 2000 for completion of determinations.

Another “hot” issue for lawyers is that financial strain has forced the Legal Services Society to solicit “block bids”, which essentially means that blocks of 25 to 50 migrants are being referred to a single lawyer for a bidded fee. This raises significant concerns related to choice of counsel, individual representation, and the ability of lawyers to adequately represent the individuals involved given the low compensation, high caseload, and two-month time frame for hearings.

Fair and expeditious processing of refugee claims requires that the claimants have reasonable access to the facilities and resources of the determining tribunal, and that claimants have access to counsel for assistance in preparing and presenting their claims in a coherent and direct manner. It is the position of the BC Branch that the resources dedicated to the determination process for the detained migrants jeopardizes the integrity of the process.

This article was published in the December 1999 issue of BarTalk and is subject to the copyright by the British Columbia Branch of the Canadian Bar Association, 2005, all rights reserved.