COCAINE SMUGGLER CHALLENGES DEPORTATION AS BREACH OF HUMAN RIGHTS

A Ghanaian convicted cocaine importer has launched a high court challenge
to the decision to deport him to his home country, claiming it would
violate his right to family life under the European convention on human rights.

Ernest Doku, who was granted parole in June after serving four and a half
years of a 12-year sentence, argues that the move would breach his human
rights by separating him from his British wife and son, and from his two
British daughters from an earlier relationship.

Yesterday his counsel, Cherie Booth QC, failed to persuade a high court
judge to release Doku on bail pending his application for judicial review
early next month. His case is expected to be one of the first challenges to
come to court after the Human Rights Act comes into force on October 2,
incorporating the European convention into English law.

Following a trial at Isleworth crown court, west London, in December 1995,
Doku was convicted of being knowingly concerned in the importation of five
kilograms of cocaine. He was jailed for 12 years and his deportation was
recommended.

He was granted parole in June but he continues to be held at the Verne
prison, Portland, Dorset, while the papers for his deportation are being
processed.

For about 10 years before he came to the UK in 1976, Doku, 64, worked as a
barrister for the Ghanaian ministry of justice. He married his British
wife, Suzie, who lives in Wembley, north London, three years after arriving
in the UK. Their son, Ernest, is at university. His daughters are in their 20s.

Doku, who has a masters degree in social sciences and international
relations, established a successful business exporting commodities and
building materials to Ghana. He was granted indefinite leave to remain in
the UK in 1983.

Ms Booth told Mr Justice Jackson that Doku had been a model prisoner, and
had successfully completed a programme that helps prisoners develop a sense
of self-respect and responsibility. He had since helped other prisoners
complete the programme.

But the judge refused him bail, saying there was a risk of absconding,
particularly if the decision in a similar case to be heard shortly before
his own went against him.

The courts are bracing themselves for a raft of claims under the Human
Rights Act, with immigration and deportation predicted to be a fertile area.

Under the convention, the right to family life is not absolute. The state
may legiti mately interfere with it for a number of reasons, including "for
the prevention of disorder or crime". But the state must not go further
than is necessary to achieve that aim.

The European court of human rights in Strasbourg held in one case that
there was no violation where the applicant brought his deportation on
himself by breaching immigration controls.