by Allan Norman
“The law of humanity, which is anterior to all positive laws, obliges us to afford them relief, to save them from starving” – so said the Lord Chief Justice, in a landmark case on our duty to destitute foreigners, in 1803. And so, effectively, said the Court of Appeal again, just a week before Christmas, reminding social workers in Lewisham of their common duty to humanity.
The case, Pajaziti & Anor, R (on the application of) v London Borough of Lewisham [2007] EWCA Civ 1351 (18 December 2007), was one I had come across before.
I was seeking subsistence support for a client service user, and the solicitors to a metropolitan social services authority had referred me to what the High Court had said. I wrote back at length, setting out why I thought both the local authority and the High Court in Pajaziti had missed the point. I could have waited. The Court of Appeal has now done the job for me.
This is yet another in a series of cases in which social workers seek to avoid obligations to people subject to immigration control, looking to central government to pick up the tab instead, for resource reasons. The fertile breeding ground for litigation appears to be the question of how much need for care and attention a person must have before it amounts to a community care need. The court in this case made clear that it is simply applying the law as it stands, not developing new principles. But its statement of existing principles is very clear, and worth repeating:
“The [Pajazitis] have of course had, and still have, [needs for psychiatric services]. But they also have had, and still have, a separate and additional need for the care and attention that is required by all who are condemned to a life on the streets, being care and attention in the shape of shelter and warmth… [Lewisham concluded] wrongly, that the appellants' "needs were solely for primary health care services ….". It had ignored their need for shelter and warmth…”
I applaud the straightforward language of the court, reminding us social workers of the possibility of an assessed need for something as basic as “shelter and warmth”. I have argued in an article elsewhere that social work is, or should be, committed to universal human rights, including the human right to “food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services...” (Article 25, Universal Declaration of Human Rights). If Lewisham social workers had taken on board the “common law of humanity” in 1803 or the universal human rights of 1948, the case would surely never have been necessary.
Allan Norman is Principal Social Worker & Solicitor at Celtic Knot (www.celticknot.org.uk), an independent law firm and social work practice.
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