Charity begins legal fight over evictions
SHELTER Scotland yesterday launched a legal challenge against plans to evict more than 300 failed asylum seekers and change the locks on their homes.
The charity’s legal team lodged papers at Glasgow Sheriff Court over the ‘lock-out’ orders put in place by public services group Serco.
The firm, which is contracted by the Home Office, said it was evicting around 330 people, mainly in Glasgow, because they had overstayed after losing their asylum cases.
It looks after the housing needs of asylum seekers as part of a contract called COMPASS but said it has been providing free accommodation for months at its own expense. It has agreed to suspend any action for 21 days after a public outcry over the forced removal of residents.
Speaking outside court, Fiona McPhail, principal solicitor at Shelter Scotland, said papers had been lodged ‘in three cases for three of the six people who were last week given a seven-day notice of lock changes’.
She added: ‘We’re challenging the lawfulness in various arguments. There’s a period [of] 21 days of temporary reprieve, so to speak, for our clients and we’ll be back here to argue that out.’
Shelter had asked for longer than 21 days, but the court denied it an extension. Miss McPhail said: ‘What the court have asked is for the other side to state their defence to the case, so the court and us have an understanding of their position in writing.
‘It’s a massive temporary victory for these six individuals and we know from the statement issued on Saturday that everyone else will not be served notices while these legal issues are clarified.’
She added: ‘There are different arguments – one of the ones we’re keen to put forward is the human rights perspective.
‘These individuals are at risk of losing their home, we’re arguing that COMPASS and Serco are acting on instructions from the Home Office and acting as a public authority and therefore have obligations under the Human Rights Act. There’s a requirement for there to be due process, there needs to be safeguards in place and it’s not compliant for there to merely be a lock-change at a certain stage.’
Serco previously said it welcomed the clarity a legal challenge would bring.
The firm has said it has been subjected to ‘pretty vile abuse’ over recent days.
It said that in Scotland, until now, it had chosen not to evict failed asylum seekers when their Home Office funding stopped, continuing to provide free accommodation for months and sometimes years.
But it said that the numbers overstaying has almost doubled in a year – from 167 in August 2017 to around 330 currently – and it ‘simply cannot afford to continue’.