I wish to take issue with the headline article in the Cayman Net News of Tuesday, 6 March, 2007, whereby that publication reported and commented upon the special report by the Office of Complaints Commissioner in December last regarding the tenure of three Afghans who were recently granted exceptional leave to remain in the Cayman Islands.
From reading the comments quoted in the Cayman Net News it is clear that the Complaints Commissioner is of the view that by failing to grant the three Afghan national’s refugee status in the Cayman Islands, the Chief Immigration Officer was acting contrary to the ruling of the Immigration Appeals Tribunal.
This assumes an interpretation of the Tribunal’s decision to the effect that the decision of the Chief Immigration Officer to refuse the applications for refugee status was overturned.
As I noted in my address to the Legislative Assembly in December, 2006, the Government Legal Department in interpreting the Tribunal’s decision was of the opinion that the appellants had not been granted refugee status by the Tribunal.
There is clearly therefore a difference of opinion between the Complaints Commissioner and that of the Legal Department upon which the Chief Immigration Officer relied.
Since the applications for refugee status had been refused and the subsequent appeals had not overturned the decision there was no obligation to grant the three Afghans refugee status, which would allow them to remain in the Islands indefinitely. The question then became whether they should remain on temporary admission with full responsibility for their financial upkeep falling to the Cayman Islands government or whether they should be granted exceptional leave to remain, a status that would allow them to work and support themselves.
In view of the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan it was accepted that it would not be possible to repatriate them there for the foreseeable future and the Chief Immigration Officer took the view that the best option for the present was to grant exceptional leave to remain, thus making their tenure less uncertain and at the same time relieving the financial burden on the Cayman Islands government.
I wish also to state that prior to the decision to grant the three Afghans exceptional leave to remain was announced in the Legislative Assembly, I had discussed the issue on several occasions and in-depth with the Chief Immigration Officer.
For the record, I wish to make it clear that the Chief Immigration Officer only took into consideration the merits of the refugee status applications and the advice received from the Legal Department in relation to the applications and his decisions were in no way influenced by political pressure.
Finally, while I appreciate and understand the importance of having an impartial arbiter to investigate allegations of maladministration in the public service it is critical that this process remains within the confines set out in law and does not become involved in the merits of the application in question.
For the latter, there is a right of appeal to an appellate authority provided for in the Immigration Law, a right that has been already availed of by the Afghans.
George A. McCarthy– Cayman Islands Chief Secretary
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