Gurkhas march on court to demand right to stay in Britain

LONDON (AFP) - Hundreds of former Nepalese Gurkha soldiers marched on London's High Court Tuesday to press their demand for the right to settle in Britain, as a judge began a judicial review of their legal challenge.
Indian-born British actress Joanna Lumley, whose father fought alongside the Gurkhas, joined their protest outside the court before a judge began hearing a two-day legal action which affects 2,000 former Gurkhas.
She knelt before two veteran Gurkhas in wheelchairs to wish them luck in the test case being brought by five Gurkhas and a widow who have been refused the right to stay in Britain.
"My own father served with the Gurkhas for 30 years. Like so many people in Britain, I am ashamed at how successive governments have failed these magnificent and loyal soldiers," said Lumley.
"I want to see justice done," she told Lachhiman Gurung, 91, and Tul Bahadur Pun, 86, who served with her father in Burma during World War II.
A lawyer representing the Gurkhas said at the start of the hearing that the government's refusal to automatically allow them to live in Britain was "indefensible."
A judge last month granted the veterans permission for an urgent judicial review of the lawfulness of Britain's settlement policy for Gurkhas, who have fought for the British army for nearly 200 years.
Gurkhas who retired after 1997, when their base was moved from Hong Kong to England, can stay in Britain.
But those who retired earlier and whose individual cases were decided by visa officials in Kathmandu and Hong Kong must apply for permission to stay and may be refused and deported.
All other foreign soldiers in the British army have a right to settle in Britain after four years of service anywhere in the world.
Kau Prasad Pun, 53, was granted a British residential visa after 18 years' service in the Gurkhas, but he said he had joined the London protest to support his colleagues who were not allowed to settle in the country they served.
"We are being discriminated against," he said. "We enlisted to kill the enemies of Britain but now Britain is killing us."
The Gurkhas' lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, told the court that four of the plaintiffs were refused the right to stay in Britain on the grounds they lack "strong ties" with the country.
"However distant their country of origin, whatever the location of their headquarters at a particular moment in history, however remote the battlefields on which they fought and risked their lives and shed their blood, all the Gurkha soldiers, past and present, were fighting for this country," Fitzgerald said.
"That gives them all equally strong ties to this country."
Around 200,000 Gurkhas fought for Britain in World Wars I and II, and about 3,500 currently serve in the British army, including in Afghanistan and Iraq. More than 45,000 have died serving Britain.
The Gurkhas, who are renowned for their bravery and ferocious fighting skills, have also struggled for many years for equal pension rights as their British army counterparts.
Three Gurkhas who lost a court challenge on pensions in July this year are taking their case to the Court of Appeal next month.
That case related to an offer made by the Ministry of Defence last year to transfer pensions benefits from the far lower Gurkha Pension Scheme into the more mainstream Armed Forces Pension Schemes.
The defence ministry offered to transfer the value of the GPS pensions into the AFPS for periods of military service after 1997.
Lawyers argued this penalised older retired Gurkhas, saying the years of service of those who signed up before that date but retired afterwards were valued at between 24 percent and 36 percent of British rates.
Several Gurkhas told AFP they currently receive a monthly pension of about 18,000 Nepalese rupees (173 euros, 245 dollars).


"To be born English is to win first prize in the lottery of life"