Make An Equality Stand

posted: 14/04/2011

People who want to protect the rights of people living with HIV and stand up for Equality should post a comment on the government’s website called the RedTapeChallenge. We have no idea why, but the Cameron government seems to think Equality law and Human Rights are just bureaucratic red tape regulations that should be swept away. They ask people to
 

"Tell us what you think should happen to this Act and why, being specific where possible:
• Should they be scrapped altogether?
• Can they be merged with existing regulations?
• Can we simplify them – or reduce the bureaucracy associated with them?
• Have you got any ideas to make these regulations better?
• Do you think they should be left as they are?"

We encourage people to stand up for HIV, Human Rights and Equality for all. This law provides vital protection for people with HIV among many other groups.

Some excellent responses on the RedTapeChallenge website make the point that the Equality Act is a very recent law (2010) passed by Parliament and not regulations at all.
 

There are also many uninformed and hostile calls for the whole law to be scrapped.

People concerned about equality and HIV need to make their voices heard.

Please – now
Go to the website and write a short note with your views on the Equality Act.

Some points to make

• the Equality Act is primary legislation, not regulations;
• say how wrong it is to pretend this is about regulations when the entire Equality Act 2010 appears to have been put up for grabs;
• ask people to say positive things about the Equality Act – it’s for everyone, whether women or men, whatever people’s race, beliefs or faith, sexuality, age, marriage or civil partnership, disability (which includes HIV and cancer), pregnancy and maternity, or gender reassignment. The Equality Act helps make the country more civilised, people respect our differences and organisations to provide services without discriminating.

Message the link / use Facebook / Twitter and other networks to people to add their voices
 

Making a quick comment only takes a moment

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Human Rights Court - HIV discrimination

posted: 18/03/2011

The European Court of Human Rights has just made a helpful and important ruling about HIV discrimination. The court said discrimination against people with HIV is so widespread that it means people with HIV are a “vulnerable group with a history of prejudice and stigmatisation”.

This ruling makes it easier for other people to make HIV discrimination claims on human rights grounds. This means people with HIV will automatically be treated in future human rights cases as 'vulnerable'. This means one less thing to prove when making a human rights claim in UK courts and tribunals.

With cuts to public services for people with HIV, including access to free legal aid, more people with HIV in the UK are likely to need to use the Human Rights Act. This ruling will help.

The European Court case was against Russia. Russia refused a residence permit to a man from Uzbekistan (who is married to a Russian woman with whom he has a child) simply because he is HIV-positive. The Court said this plainly breached their human right to family life. If he hadn’t had HIV he would have been given the residence permit to live with his wife and child in Russia.
 

The court said, "The mere presence of a HIV-positive individual in a country is not in itself a threat to public health."
 

Human Right to Family Life and non-discrimination

Russia was found to have broken Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to family life, and Article 14, which bans discrimination.
 

Last October, the European Human Rights Court ruled against Russia because of Moscow's bans of gay pride events. Then the court found that Russia was breaking the European Convention guarantees of freedom of assembly and association, the right to an effective remedy and prohibition of discrimination.

Source

 
More details on this New York law professor’s blog

European Court of Human Rights

Guide to HIV Healthcare Confidentiality

posted: 15/12/2010

A new guide for people living with HIV explains your rights to confidentiality in healthcare and what you can expect. The guide, Personal information and the NHS, goes through common concerns people living with HIV have about how the NHS treats the privacy of information about HIV status.

It explains how personal information will be handled, and gives practical advice about what to do if people have any concerns.

Know the facts and take action

This guide helps people with HIV understand confidentiality and privacy rights. It encourages people to ask questions and make concerns known, which NAT hopes will help improve things for everyone. If a person with HIV feels that their personal information has been mishandled, armed with the facts in this guide, they can take action.

Confidentiality is protected in the NHS in the following ways:

• NHS staff should not talk about someone to anyone else either inside or outside the NHS without the patient’s consent; this includes talking to family members and friends of the patient
• NHS staff should not leave names visible anywhere. They should therefore cover up names on paper files or close computer screens and electronic medical records
• All paper records should be kept in a secure place and all computerised records should have electronic protection, such as secure logins and passwords.

Deborah Jack, Chief Executive of NAT (National AIDS Trust), told us:

‘Many people living with HIV have experienced concerns relating to confidentiality of their status and in healthcare this is especially important. In order to receive the best healthcare, sometimes this does mean sharing your personal information but people living with HIV should be able to do that and feel confident that their information will only be shared appropriately and with their consent. NAT has developed this guide in order to set out the basic principles of confidentiality within the NHS, as it can be a confusing area and many people do not fully understand what the rules – or their rights – are.’

guide: Personal information and the NHS is here
 

NAT's policy report Confidentiality in healthcare for people living with HIV provides useful background 

Job restrictions for asylum seekers?

posted: 30/07/2010

UPDATED 23 August

New Immigration Rules following the Supreme Court's decision will begin on 9 September and updated guidance has been produced by the UKBA

After the Supreme Court decision we reported yesterday allowing some 'legacy case' asylum seekers to apply for permissiion to work, Home Office ministers are now trying to limit the jobs these 45,000 asylum seekers could take.

The immigration minister, Damian Green, wants to stop asylum seekers from taking most jobs and restrict them to types of work where the government has said there are official shortages.

Home Office officials are investigating the possibility of telling asylum seekers they can apply only for vacancies among 400,000 skilled jobs in shortage occupations – a tiny fraction of almost 30 million jobs in the UK economy.
 

Some teaching, engineering, welding, dancing jobs only
Asylum seekers would have to be qualified maths teachers, chemical engineers, high-integrity pipe welders, experienced orchestral musicians, or ballet dancers or have other unusual skills to have any hope of being given permission to work. The jobs are the same as the types of jobs open to migrants from outside Europe wanting to work in the UK under the new points-based immigration system.
 

This week's supreme court ruling said refused asylum seekers who made a second fresh claim for refugee status should be allowed to work if they had waited more than 12 months for a UKBA decision.
 

The Supreme Court ruling applies a EU directive which set minimum standards for how asylum seekers are treated throughout Europe, so asylum seekers are treated with basic dignity. The Supreme Court rejected the home secretary's case that this group of asylum seekers should not have this protection because their first application had been rejected.
 

10 years of 'right to work' campaigning
Refugee welfare groups have been fighting for more than 10 years to lift the ban on asylum seekers being allowed to work in Britain while their applications are decided. This is the first time the courts have backed the principle.
 

Immigration barristers say the ruling will mean that tens of thousands of failed asylum seekers whose fresh applications are grinding their way through the system will be entitled to basic rights, including the right to work. The court said any problem with undeserving cases should be dealt with by deciding them quickly rather than by punishing them by depriving them of their fundamental rights.
 

45,000 of the ‘legacy cases’
The Home Office says that up to 45,000 refused asylum seekers are likely to be affected by the ruling. Many of them are among the 450,000 "legacy cases", some dating back more than 10 years, which the Home Office is working through in a backlog exercise.
Immigration minister Green confirmed his intention to severely restrict the jobs open to asylum seekers who have waited more than a year for a decision. He said: "I believe it is important to maintain a distinction between economic migration and asylum – giving failed asylum seekers access to the labour market undermines this principle." He claimed the ruling would have only a short-term effect as "the long delays in the asylum system will be resolved by the summer of next year when all the older asylum cases are concluded".
 

Disbelief at plan to clear 450,000 backlog within 12 months
It is hard to see how all these legacy cases can possibly be decided by next summer. The private company Serco has just lost its £15m contract with the UK Border Agency (UKBA) which was to help clear the huge backlog in legacy asylum claims, amid allegations that the system is in complete chaos.

Serco was given the contract last year to speed up clerical work and help caseworkers clear the backlog of 450,000 asylum cases. Many of the cases date from the mid-1990s. The plan was that with Serco's help the entire backlog would be dealt with by 2012. But complaints started to come in almost immediately that Serco’s work was slowing the system down. According to one insider, there were too many inaccuracies and omissions by Serco.

UKBA staff have now been told that the work is to be returned to UKBA civil servants. So far, it seems, only about 200,000 legacy cases have been dealt with and the system remains in chaos. At the same time as the announcement that the work is being taken back by UKBA, a leaked memo from the coalition government reveals plans to axe 7,000 UK Border Agency jobs - 1,700 this financial year. How the UKBA will be able to deal with new asylum cases, not to mention the scandalous backlog, with a third fewer staff, remains to be seen.
 

Home Office job restrictions plan ‘disappointing’
Jonathan Ellis, director of policy and development at the Refugee Council, said the Home Office's response to the ruling was "disappointing". "The supreme court ruled that this group of asylum seekers has the right to work under EU law – the government should not then limit this right down to a small number of asylum seekers who meet the requirements for national shortage occupations."
 

"The shortage occupation list is not designed for asylum seekers but rather economic migrants needing sponsorship to come to the UK. Asylum seekers who have waited so long for a decision should be allowed to work for local employers whenever their skills are needed."
 

Source
with additional material about Serco from Private Eye 1267, 23rd July – 5th August 2010

More Asylum Seekers Can Work

posted: 29/07/2010

UPDATED 23 August

New Immigration Rules following the Supreme Court's decision will begin on 9 September and updated guidance has been produced by the UKBA

People who have been waiting for a decision on their asylum claim for more than one year now have the legal right to work, even when they have made a fresh claim. People applying for asylum are not normally allowed to work. If people seeking asylum are still waiting for the first decision on their claim for 12 months or more, then they can ask for permission to work. Few people wait this long for the first decision on asylum claims so this rule does not help many people to work.

But yesterday the Supreme Court opened the door to many more people. It ruled that people who have made a fresh claim for asylum have the same right, if they have waited 12 months or more in total for a decision on their first and a later fresh claim.
 

Campaign Success

This is excellent news for many asylum seekers with HIV and other asylum seekers who do not want to be dependant on the state, but who are keen to work and use their skills to support themselves and their families.George House Trust has supported the national campaign for the right to work and welcomes the decision of the Supreme Court.
 

The Supreme Court was politely but firmly dismissive and critical of the Home Secretary’s weak case. The previous Secretary of State Alan Johnson, decided to appeal against the Court of Appeal’s ruling in April last year which first allowed the right to work.

In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court has now recognised that people who have submitted new evidence to support their claim for asylum (a 'fresh claim'), and who have waited longer than 12 months for a Home Office decision on their initial claim, should be given permission to work.
 

Thanks to EU

This is because they are included within the EU ‘Reception Directive’ from the time their application first application was sent in. The Reception Directive says that an asylum seeker can apply for permission to work if they have not had a decision on their claim from the Home Office after 12 months.
 

The Supreme Court dismissed the Secretary of State’s arguments that a fresh application for asylum does not fall within the EU's Reception Directive. The Court said it didn’t accept that this would lead to a rush of unmerited fresh applications being made, and that anyway denying people their right to work was not the proper way to prevent that happening.
 

Welcome for judgement

Jonathan Ellis, Chief Executive of the Refugee Council said:
“We welcome the Supreme Court’s decision to accept that an asylum seeker who has submitted a fresh claim for asylum should be given permission to work after they have waited twelve months for a decision on their claim. The appeal by the former Secretary of State against the Court of Appeal’s decision that this person should be allowed to work, has wasted valuable time and resources at time when asylum seekers should have been supported to get on with their lives rather than face destitution.
 

“The vast majority of asylum seekers who come to the UK would rather support themselves through work than be forced to be homeless or to rely on Government support. Denying asylum seekers the chance to work means they cannot contribute to the UK economy and condemns asylum seekers and their families to abject poverty. We would urge the government to ensure those who have submitted fresh claims for asylum will now be granted support and permission to work under this ruling immediately.”
 

Get advice first before working

People who think they now have the right to work should seek advice from their immigration adviser about applying for permission to work. People are not allowed to simply start working.

Source
Press summary of Judgment - produced by the Supreme Court 
 

The full Supreme Court judgment is not yet available on the court's website - search here later for [2010] UKSC 36