The governments offer to take in 20,000 Syrian refugees over five years is far too low, too

slow and too narrow, according to a statement published by 300 senior lawyers, former law
lords and retired judges.
Prominent supporters of the legal initiative, denouncing the UKs asylum policy as deeply
inadequate on Monday, include the former president of the supreme court, Lord Phillips,
three ex-law lords Steyn, Walker and Woolf as well as a former president of the European
court of human rights, Sir Nicolas Bratza, and a one-time director of public prosecutions,
Lord MacDonald.
The combined assault by senior figures from the legal profession is also backed by more than
a hundred QCs, the governments former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Alex
Carlile, and five judges who recently sat in the court of appeal Sir Henry Brooke, Sir
Richard Buxton, Sir Anthony Hooper, Sir Alan Moses and Sir Stephen Sedley.
The statement calls for safe and legal routes to the UK to be established, for Britain to
accept a fair and proportionate share of refugees, and suspension of the Dublin system,
which compels asylum-seekers to claim asylum in the first country where they set foot in the
EU. Although no serving judges have signed, the initiative continues the process of the
judiciary becoming more outspoken in political affairs.