Welfare, Asylum and the Politics of Judgment

This article examines 14 judgments over a ten-year period of challenge to the removal of welfare support from ?late claimers? for asylum. The case history spans a period of transition in Britain from the general principles of the Common Law to the implementation of the Human Rights Act (HRA) (Home Office, 1998), but indeterminacy is to the fore in such a developing area of law, allowing considerable scope for judicial interpretation. The focus of this article is therefore the cumulative dynamic of the judgments, their strategic delivery and their policy impact. The analysis demonstrates the force of general principles in yielding a solution, while also providing evidence of judgment as political dialogue over competing visions of society.