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The political media live by leaks, rumour and “surveys” of public opinion.  The Gallup and Mori polls have a high order of reliability, using time-honoured quota sampling methods, albeit not true “random” surveys.   

• Yet the results command the headlines in the national Press.  Even surveys with properly-controlled random samples commonly have margins of error of +/- 3% for every figure - which means that a "sample" comparison between 47% and 53% might well signify a 50/50 split in the real population.  After all, the 47%-figure might well be 50% - and the 53%-figure might well also be 50%, giving a dead heat!  Even with a perfect random sample (which is never used, in opinion polling), no commentator should assume a difference unless the margin-of-error is exceeded: that would mean 54%-to-46% - because anything closer might not be a difference at all!

So - rigged telephone surveys (YouGov, ICM) are a truly appalling method of researching public opinion.  The margins of error (which are never stated, because they are incalculable) could well be as high as 7%, which means that only a difference of 15-percentage-points should be treated as significant at all.

Yet even the "quality" media erect huge reports and theses upon the presence of differences of 4% or 5% - when they should really be consigning the papers to the dust-bin.  They are used, because we readers continue, as do our politicians, to take them seriously.

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I have complainants, two in fact. Their beef is that I have not properly “reported back” to you on my July fortnight in London, studying asylum and immigration law. 

• Let me try

My second conclusion is that a much clearer distinction should be drawn between the “asylum” cases and the more routine application process for visas and permits of all kinds. 

Third: While the UK asylum-assessment proceedings are satisfactory in form, they are not satisfactory in content, and their quality is deteriorating.

(1)  Home Office "Interview": These key interrogations are now conducted at three centres in the UK - Croydon, Birmingham, and Liverpool.  These are the principal offices of the Immigration & Nationality Directorate, and asylum applications (if not made at the port of entry) may be made only in person at one of these offices.  These offices are also the only ones authorised to undertake the key initial interrogation.

I have now read dozens of these Interview Records, which are of very variable quality.  Many of these interviews must of course be conducted through an interpreter, which is itself a fraught and difficult process, demanding considerable ability on behalf of the interrogator.  An interview commonly lasts less than two hours. 

Recently, in Spring 2004, the Government withdrew legal aid altogether from a Solicitor's attendance at that interrogation, by way of support for the Applicant.  Now, most Applicants have to face the interrogation on their own, even if they have managed to secure legal representation.   The Government believes that Solicitors are exploiting the legal-aid system, and has taken this counter-measure.  But it is nevertheless wrong.  Ways must be found of giving the Applicant the assurance of support at that key interrogation.

(2) Home Office Decision Letter The initial Home Office decision (of course, I see only those where the Application has been rejected, I do not know the ratio of initial success) is made by the same person as conducted the interrogation.  Most of these decision letters (littered with pro forma sentences and terminology) are of unimpressive quality, for the most part merely declare that the Applicant is not considered credible, or that the Applicant has not discharged the burden of proof, without needing to determine questions of substantive policy or law.

This is low-calibre public administration, certainly by UK standards.  The process is essentially a buck-passing one, to be completed quickly, passing the File to the "independent" Adjudicator, who comes next in line.

(3) Immigration Appellate Authority: Adjudication   This is a hearing before a person appointed by the IAA to hear appeals against Home Office Decision Letters.  The hearings are held in court-rooms (Magistrates, County Courts), with all the paraphernalia of "judicial" proceedings.  And although there are a number of full-time professional Adjudicators, outside London, they are for the most part lawyers appointed ad hoc (many of them retired) at a fee rate of £700 per day, to despatch this business.  The appearance of a Court is deceptive, for the Adjudicators have none of the assured independence of a judge.  They are effectively charged with taking the entire administrative decision, as super-administrators - they can consider every aspect of the case, and take the same sort of decision as the Home Office official could have taken, granting asylum if they think fit.  They are in effect "out-sourced" officials, working within the system of administrative tribunals, outside the Court system altogether. 

None of that would be objectionable, to my mind, if the system were properly understood and fairly administered.  But it is not.  It is almost impossible to persuade an Adjudicator to depart from the conclusions on fact or credibility reached by the Home Office.  This is not difficult to understand: they are, as lawyers, working necessarily with shadowy evidence, most of which is incapable of corroboration in this country or at all, and with a shadowy version of the "burden of proof".  And there is no time for a real "re-hearing" of the facts of the case, or any real review of the credibility of witnesses: those problems are all assumed away, in favour of the Home Office. 

And the Adjudicator is then asked to decide whether or not there is a "real risk" of persecution, if the Applicant is returned to his home country.  Frankly, this is not lawyer territory, and there is inevitably a strong pro-Home Office bias in their whole approach - I do not blame them for that, let me make that clear.  Indeed, I get the uncomfortable feeling that the whole process of "judicialisation" may well have created as many problems as it resolves, in the search for a just solution.  Junior Home Office staff rush the Files through, so that they reach the Adjudicator quickly: and the Adjudicator is then ill-equipped to undertake a proper, substantive inquiry.  There are systemic faults in this approach which make it difficult for "just" conclusions to be reached.  There is a black hole at its very centre, where serious investigation is often by-passed: the Home Office does not undertake it, and the appeal process militates against its pursuit.

My personal conclusion is this.  I must continue to develop my personal understanding of its workings, and do whatever I can to achieve just solutions within a defective system.  And I will be thinking all the time about what is necessary, to improve the system - to make it more likely that just conclusions will be reached.