Our response to the Call for Evidence on the Independent Appeals Body
Our response to the Call for Evidence on the Independent Appeals Body
Asylum Justice has submitted evidence to the Home Office’s Call for Evidence on the proposed Independent Appeals Body, drawing on our frontline experience representing asylum seekers and refugees across Wales. We are the only organisation in Wales with IAA Level 3 accreditation able to represent people at asylum appeal stage, and we undertake a significant proportion of appeals work in the country, despite having no legal aid contract. Responding to Calls for Evidence allows Asylum Justice to use our frontline experience to amplify the voices of refugees, vulnerable migrants and people seeking asylum, and ensure policymakers hear directly about the realities and consequences of the current asylum and immigration system.
Our submission highlights the severe crisis in access to immigration and asylum legal advice in Wales. Due to the collapse of specialist legal aid provision, many people who should be entitled to publicly funded representation are unable to find a lawyer. As a result, Asylum Justice is now taking on cases that would previously have been covered by legal aid, including appeals for unaccompanied asylum‑seeking children. Since 2023, we have represented 105 Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children, filling a critical gap in protection.
Demand for our services is rising sharply. In 2024/25 alone, we saw a 27% increase in enquiries and a 41% increase in clients supported, while operating long waiting lists and under acute resource pressure. Despite these challenges, our work demonstrates the vital importance of quality legal representation: around 70% of the appeals we represent succeed, highlighting the significant impact that effective legal advice and representation can have on asylum outcomes.
Our response highlights the well-documented evidence that delays and late claims within the asylum appeals system are driven largely by structural and systemic issues. These include long-standing Home Office backlogs and operational challenges, inconsistent initial decision-making, and the impact of legal aid cuts and growing immigration and asylum advice deserts on access to timely legal advice and representation.
We raise serious concerns that proposals to speed up appeals, including a new 24‑week statutory target, could undermine fairness if introduced without significant investment in legal advice provision and appropriate safeguards. Accelerated timelines make it harder to gather evidence, instruct experts and prepare cases properly, particularly for traumatised and vulnerable individuals.
Our response emphasises that any new appeals body must be genuinely independent, including operating free from Home Office influence, and must retain core procedural protections such as oral hearings, flexibility where appellants are unrepresented, and strong safeguards for children and other vulnerable groups.
Without urgent, long‑term investment in the immigration advice sector, there is a risk that reforms could deepen existing injustices rather than deliver a fair and effective appeals system. Asylum Justice will continue both to protect the fundamental human rights of the people we support and to advocate for changes to the systemic issues within the asylum and immigration system that drive demand for our services.
Key messages from our response
- Access to justice depends on access to legal advice
Any new Independent Appeals Body will struggle to deliver fairness unless asylum appellants can access timely, high-quality legal advice and representation in practice, not just in principle.
- The legal aid crisis is already placing significant pressure on the appeals system
Cuts to legal aid and the growth of immigration advice deserts, particularly in Wales, have resulted in increasing numbers of unrepresented appellants, poorer-quality appeals, and additional pressure on the tribunal system.
- Representation materially affects outcomes
High appeal success rates where appellants are properly represented demonstrate the critical role that legal advisers play in securing fair outcomes.
- Speed must not override fairness
Proposals to accelerate appeals, including a 24-week statutory target, risk repeating the problems associated with previous fast-track systems if introduced without flexibility, safeguards, and adequate preparation time.
- Core procedural safeguards must be retained
Oral hearings, appeal rights on fact and law, flexibility on evidence, and adjournments where fairness requires are essential components of a just appeals system, particularly where appellants are unrepresented or vulnerable.
- Any new Appeals Body must be genuinely independent
Independence requires appropriate separation from Home Office influence or control over procedures, timeframes, and evidential rules to maintain public confidence and uphold the rule of law.
- Children and vulnerable appellants need specialist protections
Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and others with vulnerabilities require child-centred, trauma-informed procedures, appropriately trained decision-makers, and suitable support to participate effectively in the appeals process.
- Reform should be phased and evidence-led
Any new system should be piloted, independently evaluated, and refined before wider rollout to reduce the risk of unintended unfairness or operational failure.
Asylum Justice hopes that the Government’s review of the asylum appeals system will lead to reforms that strengthen both fairness and efficiency, while ensuring that people seeking protection can access justice in practice. We will continue to work alongside partners, legal professionals and people with lived experience to advocate for an asylum system that is humane, accessible and grounded in the rule of law.
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