Refugee and Migrant Justice (RMJ, founded as Refugee Legal Centre) was a charitable organisation in the United Kingdom which provided legal advice and representation to those who seek protection under the Geneva Conventions and human rights laws. Refugee and Migrant Justice also lobbied on behalf of cases both individually and collectively, and was concerned with monitoring public policy in the area of asylum.
Background
Refugee and Migrant Justice was founded in 1992 to be a centre for the provision of quality legal representation for those seeking protection under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and those who feared breaches of their human rights. The roots of the Refugee Legal Centre went back to the Refugee Unit of the UK Immigration Advisory Service, which was founded in 1976 as a legal assistance project for asylum seekers funded by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
As well as asylum seekers, RMJ represented unaccompanied children, and women trafficked into the sex industry.
The Ministry of Justice had implemented reforms to the legal aid system, introducing fixed-fee payments in 2007 followed by a transition to payment only on completion of each case. from which it did not recover.
An emergency public appeal raised £76,000 within 24 hours, but this was insufficient to rescue RMJ, and donations were returned. RMJ's 300 staff lost their jobs and 9,000 current clients were left without representation.
Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke claimed that RMJ's collapse was not due to delayed payments, but to RMJ's failure to improve efficiency as other providers had done.