Solicitors this week welcomed a parliamentary report claiming that the government's asylum bill could breach the Human Rights Act.

The report - by the joint parliamentary committee on human rights - slammed proposals in the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Bill for a single tier of appeal and to restrict access to judicial review to bring speed to the appeals process.

It said: 'We regard the proposal to restrict the remedial framework [enabling appeals] as being inherently objectionable, as an attack on an important element of the scheme for protecting convention rights in the United Kingdom.'

The report also criticised proposals to allow magistrates to issue warrants permitting the Immigration Services Commissioner to raid the premises of illegal immigration advisers, and of law firms accused of sheltering them.

It said: 'These provisions in our opinion engage the right to respect for private life and correspondence under the European Convention on Human Rights.'

Chris Randall, executive committee member of the Immigration law Practitioners Group, said: 'The Bill raises real human rights concerns particularly in relation to ending the High Court's supervisory powers.

Alison Stanley, chairwoman of the Law Society's immigration law committee, said: 'I welcome these findings.

The reason people are worried is that this could be the thin edge of the wedge.

If judicial review goes, there is nothing stopping the executive from doing anything it wants.'

Jeremy Fleming