Q and A: Zimbabwe asylum ruling

Asylum seekers say they could be persecuted in Zimbabwe

The Court of Appeal has ruled on a major asylum issue involving hundreds of cases - the BBC News website explains what it all means.

What is the Court of Appeal deciding?

Last year the government's immigration policy suffered a significant blow when a tribunal effectively halted all deportations of failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers.

The ruling came after a massive campaign and hunger strike against removals and a court-room battle involving scores of potential cases.

How many Zimbabwean asylum seekers live in the UK?

Some 15,000 applicants sought asylum in the UK in the five years to 2005. Only a few hundred of these were given refugee status, the vast majority having been told they had no grounds to seek asylum in Britain. Some 300 are known to have returned, more than 100 forcibly removed, since the government said it was safe to start removals in late 2004.

So why did this become an issue?

The crisis reached the High Court in the summer of 2005 when Mr Justice Collins, one of the UK's leading immigration judges, essentially ordered a reassessment of conditions in Zimbabwe before he was prepared to allow removals to continue.

There was an arguable case, he said, that conditions were such that to send someone home would be a breach of their human rights. This did not mean he did not oppose removals - only that they had to be done fairly and within the law, considering potential breaches of human rights.

The Home Office sent a fact-finding team to Zimbabwe. It came back saying there were some reports of ill-treatment, but no substantial evidence to back up claims that returning asylum seekers were being mistreated.

So why were removals to Zimbabwe stopped?

The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT) hearing a test case disagreed with the Home Office.

In its ruling in October 2005, the tribunal said that the government could not deport an asylum seeker known only as AA - because there was enough evidence to suggest he faced potential interrogation or worse on arrival in Harare.

The tribunal said that AA had no valid reason to claim asylum when he arrived in the UK. He had been dishonest in his dealings with the authorities and his account of being associated with the MDC, the Zimbabwean opposition party, was implausible because he didn't even know what the initials stood for.

But, said the tribunal, none of this altered the fact that he could face a risk of real harm if sent back - because it was clear that Zimbabwean security services believed returning asylum seekers were British spies.

That's just one case - why did this stop all removals?

The tribunal argued that such was the political paranoia in the Robert Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe, the very act of seeking asylum in Britain, even if there were no grounds for protection, meant that a Zimbabwean could be a marked man on return.

The ruling heavily criticised the Home Office fact-finding trip, suggesting "the investigators may have had existing policy in mind rather more than the discovery of new facts".

The Home Office had shown no interest in what was really happening to those it was sending back, said the tribunal, meaning that nobody could be clear if those being deported were safe.

How did the government react?

With a great deal of frustration. Given how many Zimbabwean asylum seekers are in the UK, removing at least some of them was crucial for the Home Office's targets.

It appealed the ruling, with Immigration Minister Tony McNulty initially declaring that "it drives an entire coach and horses through [the asylum system] and leaves the entire system open to abuse". The Home Office later suggested that the ruling was actually more limited because it only related to how people were returned, not the principle of return itself.

So was this a limited judgement or more important?

Both. The judgement only affected failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers - but the implications remain potentially a lot wider.

Firstly, the ruling says that the Home Office must do more to take into account the local conditions if a return is to be fair.

Secondly, it may embolden asylum seekers from other nations who argue that returns to their countries need scrutiny.

So how has this been changed by the Court of Appeal?

The court has asked the AIT to reconsider its decision. What this means in practice is somewhat unclear because it isn't a definitive ruling. On one hand the Zimbabweans affected are in a legal limbo, say campaigners. On the other hand, it may mean that the Home Office start to push ahead with removals.

What is clear however is that it is going to take a lot more time to resolve the issue - with both campaigners and the Home Office unlikely to throw in the towel.