| "Lack of objectivity in Home
Office Country Reports"
Home Office Minister, Des Browne said on Wednesday
8th September 2004 that "Accurate,
objective and up to date information is vital to ensure a robust
but fair asylum system"
It's true.
The government's Country Information Policy Unit
(CIPU) Country Reports reports are used for assessing asylum decisions,
used extensively by Home Office Presenting Officers at appeal level,
and are taken by most members of the judiciary to be objective and
impartial.
Des Browne says CIPU report information is
"of
a high standard" and that he is "confident
of the impartial way in which it is produced"
IAS has now published (06/9/2004) a comprehensive
analysis of 2004 CIPU reports (see below), and says that although
there have been improvements since *2003, there are still many issues.
Below are describing words used by IAS ...
"lack of objectivity"
"unbalanced representation"
"serious breach of objectivity"
"inclusion of such blatant political opinion"
"All reports contain unattributed statements"
sourcing issues are "so endemic as to give the reader serious
doubts about the validity of the report"
IAS concludes that CIPU Reports still cannot
be considered 'credible or free from political or policy bias'.
Shockingly, Amnesty International found that
'caseworkers were discouraged from searching on the Internet ...
Furthermore some caseworkers don't even feel the need to use the
CIPU information or any other sources of information as they felt
their knowledge of the countries was sufficient merely based on
casework alone"
The IAS say that problems with the below CIPU
reports are "so
serious that they make the report an inaccurate representation of
the conditions in the country to the extent that, in our opinion,
it should not be used in determining asylum claims. - Afghanistan,
Albania, Angola, China, Colombia, DRC, Eritrea, Iran, Northern Iraq,
Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.
NCADC's suggestion is that so-called "failed"
asylum seekers from these countries convey IAS's comments to their
legal advisors and ask if the comments could contribute to further
challenges of refusals of their claims. Asylum seekers of the above
countries whose claims have not yet been determined should ensure
their legal advisor has a copy of the IAS report and uses it.
IAS also comments on CIPU reports of the following
countries - Somalia, Sudan, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Sierra Leone, Serbia
& Montegnegro (incl. Kosovo), Romania, Algeria and Burundi.
One improvement announced today by the Home Office
is that "The production of country information material used
by the Home Office will now be undertaken by a Country Information
Unit dedicated solely to that function and the country policy function
will be performed separately within the Home Office's Immigration
and Nationality Directorate".
Whilst NCADC
welcome this improvement, we think that production of country reports
should be undertaken by an independent non-governmental organisation.
The Home Office also said that "country
reports will be published on the top twenty asylum producing countries
(and other countries identified by operational need) instead of
the current thirty five countries. This will enable resources to
be focused to assure the standard of the material produced while
ensuring that country reports are produced on the main asylum generating
countries" ... this may possibly mean that CIPU reports of
the "top 20" countries get better, but reports on the
other 15 countries fall further and further out of date, and thus,
possibly unhelpful.
The full IAS report can be found below. NCADC
has highlighted text in bold blue that we find of particular interest.
*The Immigration Advisory Service (IAS) did an analysis of CIPU
2003 reports and said that there was a "surprising degree of
plagiarism, misquotation and inaccurate citation of source material".
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Lack of objectivity in Home Office
Country Reports"
Immigration Advisory Service (IAS) has published
(06/9/2004) a comprehensive and damning analysis of the Home Office
country information reports used for assessing asylum decisions.
http://ias.live.poptech.coop/C2B/document_tree/ViewADocument.asp?ID=169&CatID=6
Summary of Findings
IAS found that the majority of the April 2004 CIPU Reports constituted
a significant improvement on their April 2003 counterparts. However,
a number of major problems remain.
The most significant of these is a
lack of objectivity. At times this involves the
direct insertion by the CIPU author of opinion into the text, at
other times it is by way of an unbalanced
representation of material from selected sources.
Other notable concerns include the poor presentation of the reports
which allows contradictory material to stand without comment, over-reliance
on one source of material, serious omissions and poor sourcing.
In some cases (see below for a list), these
problems are so serious that they make the report an inaccurate
representation of the conditions in the country to the extent that,
in our opinion, it should not be used in determining asylum claims.
In the IAS 'Home Office Country Assessments: An Analysis' (September
2003) one of the major criticisms was the surprising degree of plagiarism,
misquotation and inaccurate citation of source material. This rendered
the CIPU Assessments an unreliable source of information. In many
of the Country Reports, these concerns have been substantially addressed.
Some Country Reports, however, remain as poorly annotated as in
April 2003. In several of the reports there is a noticeable lack
of editing.
We are aware that CIPU noted the criticisms raised by IAS and other
organisations in response to the consultation last year and we have
been impressed by CIPU's openness and willingness to implement change
and improvement. IAS understands that CIPU hope to implement the
full set of changes by the October 2004 reports, and so these comments
below are given as an assessment of how the changes have affected
CIPU so far.
Home Office Opinion
Each Country Report opens with a section on the scope of the document.
In the 'Instructions on Producing Country Reports' it is stated
that 'All Country Reports must contain the standard wording as in
Annex 1'. The first sentence of paragraph 1.2 states unequivocally
that the Report 'does not contain any Home Office opinion or policy.'
IAS researchers found that the opinion of the writer (and therefore
of the Home Office) had crept into the Reports on many occasions.
In rare, but highly significant instances, this had occurred directly.
More common was a lack of balance found in the Reports, where positive
information was, without any stated reason, given precedence over
negative information. The negative information was often not included
at all or only in brief form. The issue of opinion was of key concern
to the Advisory Panel on Country Information and was discussed at
length at the meeting in March 2004. This is given further elucidation
under the Conclusion and Recommendations section of this overview.
Direct insertion of opinion
In the Nigeria Country Report, on five separate occasions, CIPU
have added sentences that give a significantly better impression
of internal security than that contained in the source material.
Three of these statements give evidence to the effect that the Nigerian
police reacted in a timely and fair manner, one that the police
were justified in their use of force, and the other that the government
relies less than previously on the armed forces. On all of these
occasions, it is claimed that this is the opinion of a particular
source. However, not only was this
opinion not offered by these sources, the opposite was true:
the sources all testified to the inefficiency of the police, their
unjustified use of force and the increase of reliance on the armed
forces. This is such a serious breach
of objectivity that it means the Nigeria Country
Report is not a reliable document on which to assess asylum claims
if those claims involve the question of availability of state protection,
or police or state abuse.
Another example is found in the first three paragraphs of the general
introduction to human rights in the Eritrea Country Report, which
include two comments to the effect that the standard of human rights
is better than under other military dictatorships found in neighbouring
countries. In the first instance, this is not relevant information
for a decision-maker trying to assess the protection needs of an
Eritrean claimant. Information on the appalling detention conditions
and torture and abuse by government forces would be better placed
here. In the second place, this reflects a significant lack of editorial
scrutiny. The inclusion of such blatant
political opinion from an unnamed embassy source which infers that
it is acceptable to return someone to these atrocious conditions
because they are not as bad as they could be, makes CIPU complicit
in that view. This is not a question of offering
a balance of information to that given by the US Department of State
and Amnesty International (both of which find significant evidence
of torture, and appalling detention conditions) because the source
is not offering any verifiable alternative view.
Indirect insertion of opinion
Of particular note with regard to the above are the Country Reports
on Somalia and Iran. Somalia was one of the countries assessed independently
by the Advisory Panel on Country Information and it is surprising,
for this reason, that more care has not been taken with regard to
this Report. Information that is outdated or only indirectly relevant
to the subject matter is retained in place of more recent and relevant
information that gives a more negative assessment of the situation.
The most surprising example of this practice is the exclusion of
material from a Home Office source (the report of a joint fact-finding
mission to Somalia). With respect to refugee returns, for example,
the CIPU Report devotes two paragraphs to listing the specific numbers
of Somali returns from neighbouring countries, whilst vital information
from the fact-finding mission on at-risk categories of returnees
from western countries is omitted.
In relation to Iran, the CIPU writer appears to be unable to accept
that human rights conditions have deteriorated in this country.
Whilst ample information is given regarding the election victory
of President Khatami and the reformists in 1997, 2000 and 2001,
the Report gives barely any information with regard to the Majles
elections of February 2004 in which the conservatives won a landslide
victory (following the disqualification of many reformist candidates).
The Report repeatedly chooses to cite UN sources from 1998 which
talk hopefully about an improvement in the human rights situation
rather than using more up to date sources. This blatantly violates
paragraph 1.5 of the Country Reports 'Scope of Document', which
claims that the sources 'remained relevant and up to date at the
time the document was issued' (see below for more on this).
There are many other examples of imbalance leading to a positive
gloss on the presentation in the Country Reports. We
believe that in the cases listed below, this is severe enough to
make these sections of the CIPU report unreliable sources for use
in asylum decisions.
Afghanistan
o The effect of the Constitution
o Internal Security
o US abuse of Afghans
o Returns
o Role and Ability of NGOs
Albania
o Mental health
o Media restrictions
o Roma
o Trafficking
Angola
o Situation in Cabinda, particularly government involvement
China
o The effect of the Constitution
o AIDS statistics
Colombia
o Justice and Impunity
o The political administration of President Uribe
o Ties between the paramilitary and government forces
o Sufficiency of Protection
DR Congo
o Political prisoners
o HIV/AIDS
o Child care provision
o Impunity
Eritrea
o Human Rights overview
Iran
o The political situation, and political activists
o Human Rights Generally
o Stoning
Northern Iraq
o Judiciary
o Effective protection of Human Rights
o Women's rights
o Law and order
o Social services
o Political system
Nigeria
o Sufficiency of Protection, particularly police
o Police abuse
Sri Lanka
o Prosecution of security force personnel
Zimbabwe
o Persecution of perceived political opponents
o Persecution of family members of political opponents
o Medical Facilities
Poor Construction / Lack of Analysis
CIPU employs a standard format for the layout and presentation of
information in the report. It has proven impossible to fit the correct
information into the relevant section for some countries with this
fixed format. It may be that the editorial board of CIPU need to
allow the writers greater flexibility within the standard format.
In most, if not all cases it appears that the up to date information
has been tacked on to the end or the beginning of the section. This
means that no attempt is made to point out discrepancies between
sources - on several occasions CIPU give conflicting information
from one paragraph to the next, without any indication that the
conflict exists, let alone why preference should be given to one
source over another. This can range from minor contradictions to
more serious ones.
In the Iran Country Report, paragraph 6.198 begins with the assertion
'activities of opposition groups such as Tudeh, Iran Paad, Komala,
and Fedayeen have not been evident in Iran in recent years'. In
the same paragraph CIPU continues 'a number of Kurds, including
members of Komala, have been executed in recent months'. It is a
basic editorial activity to recognise that the first quote comes
from a 1998 source (hence 'recent years' is not all that recent)
and to cut this statement in preference for the second source which
refer to executions in 2003 (which not only proves Komala active,
but demonstrates the interest of the authorities in the group).
In the Afghanistan Country Report, paragraph 6.84 tells us that
the situation for Hindus and Sikhs is good. 6.85 then says Hindus
and Sikhs returning to Afghanistan have found that their houses
and temples have been total ruined or are occupied and they have
no means of repossessing their property due to fear of reprisals
and that most are homeless and without jobs. Often these contradictions
are not even placed in subsequent paragraphs, leaving it up to the
perseverance of the reader to ascertain that there may indeed even
be a contradiction. In the same report CIPU state the number of
Pashtuns as being 38% (at 6.114) and then 44% (at 6.121); Hazaras
as 19% (6.114) and 10% (6.136); Uzbecks as 6% (6.114) and 8% (6.152).
In the Colombia Country Report there is only one general section
on 'Persons targeted by Guerrilla and Paramilitary forces', consisting
of an unwieldy nineteen paragraphs, many of which give contradictory
information. Since the majority of Colombian asylum-seekers to the
UK fear persecution from guerrilla or paramilitary forces, this
should surely be the crux of the report. It would be sensible to
give detailed evidence on groups, political or otherwise, that are
at risk.
Whilst the Country Reports do have information on the various arms
of the internal security forces, none of them have dedicated sections
to availability of state protection. Internal security is covered
in the standard 'Section 5 - State Structures' which attempts to
set out the technical legal or constitutional position in a country
(for example, stating that torture is unlawful) rather than the
actual position on the ground and any reported human rights abuses
by these forces. In countries such as Colombia where the vast majority
of claims are related to non-state actors, it would be pertinent
for CIPU to create a section dedicated to this. Information on protection
in the Colombian Country Report is dispersed throughout in four
non-related paragraphs, the most relevant of which is hidden in
a section entitled 'Treatment of Non-Governmental Organisations'.
Over-Reliance on a Single Source
All of the CIPU reports rely extensively and uncritically on the
US Department of State human rights reports. On average about 60%
of the material is direct quotation from the US Department of State.
This raises several different issues. The first relates to political
opinion and the reliability of this as a source material, the second
to the broader issue of the role of CIPU.
The 'Country Reports on Human Rights Practices' from the US Department
of State are unsourced documents which rely on primary and secondary
sources of information. According to the 'Preface' these reports
are compiled by the relevant embassies through their contacts with
'human rights organizations, public advocates for victims, and others
fighting for human freedom in every country and every region of
the world.' Whilst for many countries this can be a very good source
of information, for others it leaves much to be desired.
It has become quite evident over the last two years that US Government
awareness of the situation on the ground in countries where they
have no embassy is questionable. For example, the US had no presence
in Iraq from 1991 - 2003. Their intelligence was based therefore
not on embassy sources as cited above, but on satellite photos and
the word of dissidents. The debate over the existence of weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq has made it amply clear that information
from these latter sources is far from reliable. Particular care
should therefore be taken when using these reports to reflect the
current situation in DR Congo, Iran, Somalia and Sudan which do
not have a US embassy.
Furthermore, the US Department of State is not itself free from
political bias or opinion. It has been criticised by both the US-based
organisation Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and Human Rights
Watch for the lack of objectivity in its reports concerning countries
in which it has a politically sensitive stance. This would certainly
apply to Colombia, Egypt, Iraq, and Uzbekistan.
The Colombia Country Report directly quotes from the US Department
of State in 110 out of the 215 paragraphs. The political opinion
of the US Department of State has been incorporated wholesale into
the CIPU Country Report and this has particularly affected the objectivity
of the Report with regard to justice and impunity, the political
administration of President Uribe, and the ties between the paramilitaries
and the army. There is an abundance of evidence available to CIPU
from credible organisations such as the UNHCHR (February 2004
report), Human Rights Watch (who, unlike the US Department
of State, give detailed footnotes for their primary sources including
information regarding who they interviewed, when, what evidence
they saw, etc.) and International Crisis Group. The CIPU Country
Report for Colombia has to be considered an unreliable document
for determining asylum claims in light of this, as the wealth of
evidence supplied by virtually all other sources either directly
contradicts what is said by the US Department of State, or gives
details which expose its positive glossing of the situation.
There are many other examples of over-reliance on the reports of
the US Department of State, such as in the Sierra Leone Country
Report, where the outstanding and award-winning work of Human Rights
Watch only receives two references, one of which is erroneous. Amnesty
International, similarly, are only accredited with the fact that
Sierra Leone retains the death penalty.
The strong reliance on the US Department of State reports also raises
the question of time, money, and necessity. Since 60% of the Country
Reports is directly copied from the US Department of State, it would
be simpler, quicker, and more accurate if Home Office caseworkers
were advised to read the US Department of State report in the first
instance. Whilst this is not written for the asylum process, the
danger of segmenting it into various chapter headings is that, even
when accurately quoted, information relating to the same point gets
omitted or lost into another section. This is systematic throughout
the CIPU Reports (see above 'Poor construction').
Sourcing
Paragraph 1.2 of the 'Scope of the Document' states that:
a) 'All information in the Report is attributed, throughout the
text, to original source material.'
Paragraph 1.4 of the 'Scope of the Document' states that:
b) 'The great majority of the source material
is readily available in the public domain' and 'Copies of other
source documents, such as those provided by government offices,
may be provided upon request.'
Paragraph 1.5 of the 'Scope of the Document' states that:
c) 'All sources have been checked for currency,
and as far as can be ascertained, contain information, which remained
relevant at the time this Report was issued. Some source documents
have been included because they contain relevant information not
available in more recent documents.'
Paragraph 1.6 of the 'Scope of the Document' states that:
d) 'Where sources identified in this Report are available in electronic
form the relevant link has been included.'
None of the above statements is accurate for any of the 23 Country
Reports checked by IAS. In the 'Report of Advisory Panel on Country
Information consultation exercise on CIPU Country Reports October
2003' CIPU respond to this criticism by commenting 'Although errors
of this kind do not, in our view, compromise the fundamental integrity
of the Reports, they may undermine confidence in them and must be
eradicated as far as possible'. While IAS is very happy to note
CIPU's determination to rid the report of these sourcing errors,
we still believe that when a considerable amount of the material
in a given Report is wrongly sourced, this completely undermines
the integrity of that Report.
If an expert before the Immigration Appeal Tribunal were to produce
a report claiming that conditions in detention in France, for example,
amounted to a breach of Article 3, and the IAT found that over 50%
of the material did not come from the credible source that the expert
had cited, the court would be unlikely to give much weight to the
evidence of the expert, and the thesis that detention conditions
in France were inhuman and degrading would remain unproven. When
it is found that these credible sources actually state the opposite,
as is often the case in CIPU Reports, the expert report would have
to be considered as fundamentally flawed, lacking in integrity and
would therefore be rejected in its entirety. The same would apply
to a journalist writing an article, an academic writing a research
paper or a student writing an essay. It is extremely difficult to
understand why CIPU maintains that such errors do not affect the
overall reliability of the reports.
In the 'Home Office Country Assessments: An Analysis' (September
2003), IAS found the level of sourcing was so poor that many of
the Reports were chronically unreliable and little faith could be
given to their thesis that these countries were largely free from
risk for certain individuals. In this year's analysis, IAS is happy
to report that there has been a significant improvement in most
of the countries assessed, particularly with regard to plagiarism
and basic inaccuracies. However, sourcing is still not up to a satisfactory
level to give the reader confidence in the Reports, and some Country
Reports are as bad, or worse, than in April 2003.
a) 'All information in the Report is attributed,
throughout the text, to original source material.'
All reports contain
unattributed statements. Some of these are literally left without
a source, others have been credited to a source which does not give
the relevant material as claimed. In some Country Reports this is
so endemic as to give the reader serious doubts about the validity
of the report.
In the Iran Country Report in sections five and six
alone there are 35 mis-sourced statements and 12 unsourced statements.
In the Angola Country Report (sections 5, 6 and Annexes) there are
27 mis-sourced statements.
In the Somalia Country Report there are 15 mis-sourced statements.
In the Iraq Country Report, mis-sourcing or misunderstanding the
source accounts for 30% of the information checked.
Of particular concern is Serbia and Montenegro (including Kosovo)
which is so badly sourced and edited as to raise serious doubts
about the validity of the whole report. Indeed at one point the
endnote to the paragraph even states 'no source found'.
Are we then to believe that CIPU are making this up? Why was this
paragraph included in the document if it cannot be sourced? The
editing notes have been left in throughout (this also occurred with
Afghanistan, China, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Turkey) which
displays poor editorial work if nothing else.
Almost without exception, virtually all of the page numbers given
for the US Department of State report did not relate to the online
version or the printed-out version of this report. They were all
inaccurate. In some cases the reports did not even run to the page
number claimed. CIPU should use the section references supplied
by the US Department of State rather than invented page numbers.
b 'The great majority of the source material
is readily available in the public domain' and 'Copies of other
source documents, such as those provided by government offices,
may be provided upon request.'
About 40% of the material is not readily available in the public
domain (not a great majority). Some is correspondence, a lot is
by subscription service only. For the purposes of this analysis,
IAS requested these unavailable documents from CIPU for certain
countries. Unfortunately this was not an efficient process.
With regard to Romania, half the sources did not arrive, those that
did arrive contained only partial amounts of the document (so it
was not possible to check if the information was contained in them)
and they arrived a month after requesting. Requests for documents
on
Iran never arrived at all (despite three requests
being made). Given that CIPU's reputation has been so severely tarnished
with regard to misquoting from sources, this would have been a good
opportunity for this fear to be set aside as regards documents not
in the public domain. This did not happen, which leaves the possibility
open that the documents do not contain what they are supposed to
contain. Documents for Eritrea, DRC, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Somalia
and Sudan arrived as requested, albeit some four to six weeks after
the request was made. This would often be too late for use in an
asylum appeal, and definitely too late for use in an initial decision.
c) All sources have been checked for currency,
and as far as can be ascertained, contain information, which remained
relevant at the time this Report was issued. Some source documents
have been included because they contain relevant information not
available in more recent documents.'
This is also not true. Several reports contained examples of sources
used which had not been sourced at all (usually left in from previous
years).
In the Nigeria Country Report, there were many times when the footnote
had been amended to make the material from the US Department of
State report for 2003, when in actual fact it was a direct quote
from 2002 or 2001.
With regard to Serbia and Montenegro (including Kosovo) there have
been 21 documents released on the Amnesty International website
on these countries since last year and not one of them is used or
referenced in CIPU's April 2004 Report.
Use of out of date material is also particularly problematic in
the Algeria and Iran Country Reports.
d) 'Where sources identified in this Report are available in electronic
form the relevant link has been included.'
This is not the case. Most of the sources are found electronically,
and only the homepage has been given not the actual link. Even then,
some are cited so badly that it is not possible even to find the
homepage. The 'Instructions for Producing Country Reports' actually
state '[t]he length of link should ideally be kept short and if
necessary further navigation details given from that.' We have seen
no evidence at all of further navigation details being provided.
The length of the link is so short as to preclude the finding of
the document. For some the homepage or website given is no longer
live and has clearly not been checked since the previous year.
Several of the sources in each report are listed so badly that it
is impossible to know to what they are referring. For example no
date is given or no name of the article. One such example is from
the Iran Country Report which states '[16a] Various - punishments
[Guardian, Times, Daily Telegraph] 17 February 1998'. (The Times
published two articles on this date relating to Iran, neither the
Guardian nor the Daily Telegraph published anything to do with Iran
on this date). In some instances the report simply refers to the
website without specifying what on the website (this is hugely problematic
if this relates to an organisation with a large website with thousands
if not millions of reports such as the United Nations). This is
against the instructions given by CIPU on the production of Country
Reports, and is a simply point that should easily have been spotted
by an editor.
Basic Inaccuracies
This relates to mistakes in dates, names or basic information. This
was a vast improvement from the April 2003 Assessments.
Concerns still remain with regard to Albania,
Burundi, China, Eritrea and Serbia and Montenegro (including Kosovo).
Plagiarism
The most noticeable improvement on the April 2003 Assessments is
the use of quotation marks to denote when material is being taken
directly from a source. Out of the 23 April 2004 country reports
analysed by IAS, concerns remain with regard to Afghanistan, Eritrea
and Serbia and Montenegro (including Kosovo).
Conclusions and Recommendations
1. Objectivity
The purpose of CIPU is to provide country information of relevance
to decision-makers involved in determining asylum claims. This can
be sub-divided into three strands of people: policy-makers, caseworkers,
and judiciary.
Policy-Makers
It has been pointed out that the name itself 'Country Information
and Policy Unit' is problematic. CIPU do not, despite their title,
attempt to drive or make policy.
However, they do produce information (both the Country Reports and
the Operational Guidance Notes) which feed into policy decisions.
It remains highly problematic that CIPU are part of the Home Office.
The more detached and objective the Country Reports become, the
more questions must be raised about Home Office Policy. For example:
1. How can the Home Office justify inclusion of Sri Lanka on the
non-suspensive appeals (NSA) list when the CIPU Report makes it
clear that the necessary criteria are not met?
2.How can the
stance on returns to Iraq and Somalia be justified, when the CIPU
Reports indicate the general high-level risk to all returnees?
According to the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, the
Secretary of State may add a state to the NSA list if there is 'no
serious risk of persecution'. The CIPU Report details the continuing
regular use of torture by both the government and the LTTE and the
culture of impunity for human rights violations. It also reports
that the legal mechanisms in place are not sufficient for tortured
detainees to receive a fair trial. The regular use of torture in
detention to extract confessions which are then admissible in court
hearings, surely, constitutes 'a serious risk of persecution'.
CIPU state that their reports are used in
decisions on whether failed asylum seekers can be returned to a
country, but given the above, it is clear that they are ignored.
Caseworkers
CIPU's main users, the key target audience, are Home Office caseworkers
making initial decisions on asylum claims. However, as noted above,
it is clear that the reports do not meet the needs of the caseworkers
as they make such a poor attempt (and fail) to 'signpost' caseworkers
in the direction of information. In addition to this, research by
Amnesty International found that 'caseworkers were discouraged from
searching on the Internet. They were instructed to contact CIPU
through a senior caseworker if further information was required
about a claim.' Furthermore some caseworkers don't even feel the
need to use the CIPU information or any other sources of information
as they felt their knowledge of the countries was sufficient merely
based on casework alone.
Judiciary
In the minutes of the 2 March 2004 meeting, Andy
Saunders, Assistant Director of CIPU, commented that 'none of the
points accepted [i.e. the individual criticisms received by CIPU
from IAS and others] would have affected any decision on an asylum
claim'.
Whilst it is possible that no single individual point may be responsible
for a wrong decision, IAS is of the opinion that certain Country
Reports as a whole have been the leading factor in making many wrong
decisions.
The CIPU Country Reports are used extensively by Home Office Presenting
Officers at appeal level and are taken by most members of the judiciary
to be objective and impartial.
The IAT representative to the APCI, Andrew Jordan, commented 'he
could not emphasise strongly enough how much the IAT relied upon
CIPU's reports and how important it was that they were impartial.'
Similarly in Saber v SSHD (Ct of Sessions), [2004] INLR 222-231
it is said, 'If, for example, an adjudicator were to accept evidence
from an appellant that was expressly contradicted by all sources
of independent information, such as CIPU assessments, the Tribunal
might well disturb the adjudicator's finding.' CIPU argue that any
political bias on behalf of the writers of the reports is not a
deliberate attempt to skew information in any one direction.
However, the Chair
of the APCI, Steven Castles, commented that:
[E]rrors of the types listed might be expected to be random, and
therefore to more or less cancel each other out. Yet in this report
the overwhelming majority of errors seemed to lead to an overly
optimistic picture about Sri Lanka. This
suggested that the errors may not be completely random, and that
some other factors may be at work.
CIPU must accept that a degree of political opinion is bound to
be present. According to CIPU 'although country experts may have
a better contextualised understanding of the country situation,
they are also more likely to have subjective opinions on the matter.'
IAS considers this statement unsubstantiated and naove. One of
the fundamental criteria for any expert is objectivity as far as
such a thing is possible. Experts, by their very nature have received
training and have years of experience in producing academic objective
opinion that is thoroughly scrutinised and supported by evidence.
In addition, when experts give evidence in appeals, they routinely
sign documents stating their awareness of their duty to provide
impartial information to the court or tribunal. CIPU Country Officers
lack both this training and experience, and, as has been shown above,
their work is barely scrutinised at all and very often is unsupported.
2. Structure
The structural failings already identified and the standard template
lead CIPU to disperse relevant information throughout different
sections and make the documents extremely difficult to use. We recommend
that CIPU structures each Country Report to be of relevance to that
particular country. For example, if the majority of claims relate
to persecution by non-state actors, then CIPU should provide a section
on the availability of state protection. At the very least the standard
template should be re-examined.
CIPU reports should include analysis and comment only to the extent
that discrepancies between sources are pointed out to the reader.
Where sources conflict and it is possible to give precedence to
one report over the other, CIPU should state this and give its reasons.
For example, 'Different figures are given for the number of AIDS
sufferers in Ruritania, but CIPU concur with those of the World
Health Organisation as these are based on a 2003 two-month in-country
assessment by a team of experts, rather than the figure reported
by AIDS Sufferers Unite as this report is reliant on 2001 estimates.'
Rather than being a string of quotes starting with the positive
and leading to the negative, often emphasising the former disproportionately,
CIPU should begin each section with a brief introduction along the
lines of 'While the US Department of State reports that human rights
were adhered to in general in Ruritania, Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch both give specific examples of torture in detention'.
3. Editing
CIPU note that they have included an additional week into the schedule
'for the specific purpose of thoroughly checking each report', and
that they have implemented a 'revised management structure which
provides for closer control'. The 'Instructions on Producing Country
Reports' states that 'Country Reports must be rigorously checked
internally prior to publication. Country Reports must never be published
without having first been quality assured'. This policy is either
not followed, or the editors are extremely deficient in editing
skills. The editing of the Reports remains atrocious. The publishing
of seven Country Reports with the editing notes still in place in
the document is extremely surprising and provides a clear indication
that the Reports were not given any final check. Basic issues such
as obvious spelling errors throughout, poor sourcing (see below),
and unintelligible sentences also remain prevalent.
The early editing of the Reports is also weak. The 'Instructions
on Producing Country Reports' commands the editor to check a 'minimum
of 20 sources'. Yet IAS found a large number of statements were
mis-sourced. If this editing facility was done at random as suggested
by the instructions, then such a large number of mis-sourced statements
should not remain. The alternative explanation is that the majority
were mis-sourced to begin with, but we would hope that an editor
who found more than half of the random sample to be mis-sourced
would have the initiative to go on to check a further 20.
Those chosen to edit reports should be trained in editing and basic
research skills, and need to be absolutely rigorous in the application
of these skills to the Reports. If Reports do not reach a minimum
standard by publication date they should not be released until that
standard has been met.
4. Sourcing
CIPU should use footnotes. Every statement should be properly annotated
as is done in this report with the title of the document, the name
of the body producing the document, the date and the weblink (where
applicable) included. If there is no weblink, CIPU should write
'available in hard copy only from ****' and give a precise telephone
number or email address. These sources must then be provided expeditiously
and in full on request. To work to less thorough standards of sourcing
in this context is not good enough. If CIPU is to provide objective
evidence for matters pertaining to life and death, it absolutely
must be able to support every single statement it makes to a clearly
signposted location.
5. Past and Present Tense
IAS welcomes CIPU's assertion that all reports will be written in
the past tense. This was not done for all of the April 2004 reports
and it is hoped that this will be the case for October 2004.
6. Dating of material
IAS welcomes CIPU's initiative to use the most up to date information
on all occasions unless material from older sources is still relevant.
When using older sources, CIPU should state that more recent information
was not available from the sources consulted.
CIPU should state a cut-off date for when the writers have stopped
incorporating new material. This is extremely important in the context
of asylum claims and appeals, where the decision-maker is making
a judgment about risk on return as if it were to take place tomorrow.
At present, CIPU reports mislead decision-makers into believing
that the information is current when in fact it is not. It is important
that this perception is corrected by the stating of a cut-off date.
The problem is complicated by the sporadic nature of CIPU updating.
Some reports include one or two articles from February or March
2004. However, as this is only one or two, it is often a valid criticism
that CIPU have not engaged in the events of these months with proper
rigour. Amnesty International (published May of the year after),
Human Rights Watch (published January of the year after) and the
US Department of State (published February/March of the year after)
note that their information is solely regarding the previous year
and ends on 31st December. Whilst it is highly relevant for asylum
decisions that the most up to date information be available, this
should be by way of supplement rather than hurried inclusion into
the Country Reports.
IAS hopes that this analysis will be helpful to CIPU and the APCI
in improving the standard of the Country Reports to a level where
they can be considered reliable and useful documents. However, IAS
still believes that information on countries for use in making decisions
in matters of life and death should be given to an independent body
that is respected and admired by all sides in the process: an independent
documentation centre. The content of the Reports produced should
also feed into and dictate the subsequent formation of Home Office
policy as it relates to returns of failed asylum seekers.
In the House of Lords report on 'Handling EU asylum claims: new
approaches examined', the Lords stipulated that ensuring the availability
of 'authoritative and credible country of origin information' to
those making the decisions was essential to improving the current
asylum process. The Lords noted that the CIPU Country Assessments
were not accepted as 'authoritative, credible or free from political
or policy bias'. IAS research proves that despite the measures
put in place by CIPU following recommendations from the APCI, the
CIPU Reports still cannot be considered 'credible or free from political
or policy bias'.
'Handling EU asylum claims: new approaches examined' House of Lords
European Union Committee 11th Report of Session 2003-04 (30 April
2004), ch.6, para. 104
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200304/ldselect/ldeucom/74/7402.htm
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