Nearly 80% of asylum seekers are being wrongly refused publicly funded legal representation, according to a study published today by Devon Law Centre.

Since July 2007, the Devon centre has had referred to it 75 asylum cases that had been refused controlled legal representation on the grounds that they had insufficient merit.

The centre appealed against all of those refusals to an independent funding adjudicator and undertook a project to monitor the outcomes.

Following the appeals, funding was allowed in 59 cases (79%) and 30% of those people were shown to have a legitimate claim to some form of protection.

Jean-Benoit Louveaux, the asylum appellate lawyer who ran the project, said: ‘Asylum seekers come to the UK fleeing persecution such as torture, rape, indefinite imprisonment without trial, and extra-judicial execution. It is a damning indictment of the UK that those seeking sanctuary here are then denied a fair hearing.

‘The project has shown that recent reforms to legal aid have made it much harder for asylum seekers with a valid claim to prove their case.’

If the results were repeated across the country, Louveaux said it would mean that asylum seekers are being wrongly refused public funding in almost four out of five cases, even where there are legitimate grounds for protection.

‘It is time we acknowledged that asylum seekers do not represent a large wave of illegal immigration but a small persecuted minority which the UK government has abandoned,’ said Louveaux.

A Legal Services Commission spokesperson said: ‘The Legal Services Commission believes that a client’s legal representative is best placed to decide whether their client’s appeal has sufficient merit for public funding. If Devon Law Centre (or indeed anyone) has concerns that legal representatives are failing in that task then we would ask them to contact the LSC.

‘In our December 2009 edition of Focus magazine, we reminded all providers of their contractual obligations where they refuse to grant their client public funding for their asylum or immigration appeal.

‘We do not accept that the 2007 funding reforms have impacted on how legal representatives apply the merits test for appeal funding. Indeed, we note that the report suggests that research would be required to investigate their "suspicion".’