ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on refugees and asylum seekers and the interaction with national security. It deals with how the senior judiciary addresses the arguments over meaning of asylum law and policy. AV Dicey famously linked the concept to supremacy of regular law as opposed to arbitrary power. A significant concern in asylum law is discretion which the legal framework affords. The emphasis should be on continuing conversation over terms of asylum law within constraints of legal order. Asylum law in the UK has developed in the last decade as a specific area of public law. A link may emerge if asylum seekers engage in specified actions in the asylum state or before entry. Some asylum seekers and refugees will have been politically active in their state of origin. A fast-track procedure was introduced at the detention centre in 2000, whereby asylum seekers could be detained for seven days if it was felt that their claims could be determined quickly.
