A human rights lawyer has expressed his disbelief at an asylum case “25 years in the making” as the illegal migrant at the centre of the infamous “chicken nugget” case has been allowed to remain in Britain.
Speaking to GB News, David Haigh stressed that if there was “any case that highlighted the failures of Government, the Home Office and the asylum system”, this would be it.
Klevis Disha secured UK citizenship in 2007 after being granted exceptional leave to remain, and then indefinite leave to remain.
However, Disha was then jailed for two years after being caught with £250,000 in cash, known to be the proceeds of crime – sparking calls for him to be deported.
Disha’s case was held up in the appeal system after arguing that his son, referred to in proceedings as “C”, has special needs and “will not eat the type of chicken nuggets available abroad”, so should remain in Britain.
Following a number of hearings, The Sun has now revealed that Disha has won the right to remain in Britain after First Tier Tribunal Judge Linda Veloso ruled in his favour, citing Article 8 of the Human Rights Act.
Reacting to the ruling, Mr Haigh told GB News that despite the man’s case being “dragged out for 25 years”, it was the rights of his son that were paid attention to instead.
He explained: “I think it’s very difficult. This is a saga that’s been 25 years in the making. This all started when the Albanian asylum seeker came here in 2001, and since then you’ve had successive Governments, whether it’s Labour, whether it’s Conservative, failures all the way through.
“And it just shows you when a case can be dragged out for 25 years, such that the gentleman in question managed to have a family here, have a child, it’s the child’s rights that they’ve looked at in the latest hearing.”
He noted: “They basically said effectively that if the child was deprived of his father, that would be an interference in what’s called Article 8 rights under the ECHR, which is a right to a family life. So that’s effectively what’s happened.”
Arguing that the Government does have “possible routes of appeal” against the ruling, Mr Haigh said that they should instead focus on “fixing the problems” within the system.
He said: “The Government still has possible routes of appeal if it wishes to, and it said it’s considering that. But if you ever need a case of all the failures of the Government, the Home Office, the judiciary, our asylum system, this is it.
“One of the ways that we need to fix the problems that we have in the asylum system is that when we’re doing an asylum case, when we’re reviewing it, we need very competent staff and we need to do it quickly, two weeks, three weeks, not 25 years.”
Criticising the judges for “interpreting” Article 8 in “such a different way to how it was first intended”, the human rights lawyer warned that unless the UK leaves the ECHR or changes its laws, cases similar to this will “keep happening”.
He told GB News: “An Article 8 right is very different now to what it would have been then, so it’s evolved, and it’s judges and their decisions that have evolved the meaning of those article rights.
“The problem that you’ve got there is that, if for instance, now we’ve got this ridiculous situation where because someone’s son effectively has issues with a certain texture of food because of chicken nuggets, the different types, that’s deemed to be effectively breaching their rights.”
He explained further: “Now, when this was first put in place after the Second World War, I’m sure that’s not what the intention of putting these human rights in place was. There were very, very grave things happening at that time needed protecting, and that’s the problem that you’ve got.
“You’ve got the judges interpreting it in such a way, and then it just gets wider and wider and wider, and this is not what human rights laws are there for.”
Mr Haigh concluded: “Human rights laws should protect the extremely vulnerable people whose lives are at risk, are in danger, and this is not that.
“And that’s the worry. I’ve said many times before, unless we change the ECHR or leave, this is going to keep happening.”
