Act on detention of asylum seekers, lawyers told

Lawyers need to press the government to introduce provisions for reviewing the detention of asylum seekers, the winner of the Liberty/ Justice human rights award 2001 said this week.The awards, sponsored by the Gazette, saw Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) carry off the group award.

Nuala Mole, director of the AIRE Centre - a specialist human rights law centre - was human rights lawyer of the year, while Christian Tuddenham, a trainee solicitor at City giant Lovells, won the Peter Duffy award for young human rights lawyer of the year.Barbara Cohen, principal legal officer of the Commission for Racial Equality, was given a lifetime achievement award.Receiving the award, BID co-ordinator Tim Baster told a packed ceremony that there are currently 1,600 asylum seekers in detention, of whom more than 100 have been held for at least 12 months.

This number is set to increase to 3,000 in the next few months, he added.

BID has been able to help 213 detainees in the last year.Mr Baster urged lawyers to write to Home Secretary David Blunkett and lobby him to introduce part 3 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999.

This provides for a hearing on detention within seven days, and a proper judicial review process.Also shortlisted for the award was The Community Law Partnership's travellers' advice team - the only dedicated advice service for travellers - and Rights of Women, which this year launched a DIY domestic violence injunction handbook.Ms Mole was recognised for her leadership of the AIRE Centre, for her work in the groundbreaking case of TP and KM v United Kingdom (2001) The Times, 31 May - which established local authority liability over the way a council handled the removal of a child from its mother - and for her commitment to judicial training in the Balkans.Ms Cohen and Richard Meeran of London law firm Leigh Day & Co - who has pioneered work on holding UK companies to account for their human rights violations in developing countries - were shortlisted.Ms Cohen was given the lifetime achievement award for her commitment to racial justice and equality.Mr Tuddenham, who works with the charity Prisoners Abroad, was rewarded for his instrumental role in changing the Foreign Office's policy not to support clemency appeals of Britons imprisoned abroad.Nicola Rogers, assistant director of the AIRE Centre, and barrister Henrietta Hill of Doughty Street Chambers - who has been working with the Gurkha Army Ex-Servicemen's Organisation in its campaign to secure equality of treatment from the British Army - were shortlisted.Also commended were the lawyers in the Diane Pretty 'right to die' case - barristers Philip Havers QC and Fenella Morris, solicitor Mona Arshi of Liberty, and the Voluntary Euthanasia Society - and immigration lawyer Michael Hanley, founding partner of north London law firm Wilson & Co.

He won the landmark ruling in September that four Kurdish asylum seekers' detention in Oakington Detention Centre was unlawful and breached their human rights

By Neil Rose