There is a growing feeling in legal circles that amendments to the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Bill, currently before the Dail, will end up in the Supreme Court. The amendments concern proposals to reduce the time asylum-seekers have to challenge a decision on their application in the courts from up to six months to 14 days.

If asylum-seekers wish to challenge a decision not to grant asylum, they can, first, appeal to the Refugee Appeals Authority and, if turned down there, to the Minister, for leave to remain on humanitarian grounds. These grounds are spelt out in law. If this appeal fails, the asylum-seeker is served with a deportation order.

The only basis on which they can go to the courts is by seeking a judicial review of the decision (at any stage). A judicial review is a review of the procedures and decision-making process by a High Court judge. It is only concerned with the law and the manner in which the decision was made, and is not a rehearing of the merits of the case.

A judicial review is a two-stage process. First the applicant must seek leave for a judicial review by convincing the judge that he or she has a case. Then the applicant prepares his or her substantive case. The initial application must usually be made within three months though, in some circumstances, this can be extended to six.

The proposals contained in the amendments would reduce this time for asylum-seekers to two weeks. Further, they would be required to convince the High Court judge at this stage that "substantial grounds" existed for contending that the decision being questioned should be quashed.

Human rights lawyers and those experienced in dealing with asylum-seekers are concerned that this breaches our constitutional guarantees of fair procedure, and disadvantages asylum-seekers relative to others seeking access to the courts.

The decisions may themselves by conveyed first to solicitors. Many asylum-seekers do not speak English and need to have decisions translated for them. Most asylum-seekers have legal aid from the Legal Aid Board's refugee service, which must give specific permission for judicial reviews.

Therefore, two weeks gives very little time for asylum-seekers to receive a decision, have it translated, read it in their own language, reflect on the implications of the decision, decide on seeking a judicial review, get permission from the Legal Aid Board, and instruct a solicitor, who must consult counsel, who will need to prepare "substantial grounds" for a judicial review. This will mean raising every possible ground that could arise.

They could quickly run out of time to bring the case and end up being deported without their challenge being heard.

While there are already restrictions on the time available for judicial reviews in certain instances, like those relating to planning, these concern the legitimate interests of third parties, which do not arise here.

But many lawyers are concerned about the proposed amendments on wider grounds. Peter Finlay SC, a former member of the Refugee Appeals Authority, feels they are fundamentally discriminatory and go against the whole thrust of our Constitution and our recent commitment to integrate into Irish law the European Convention on Human Rights.

Last week he told the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality and Women's Rights that the past 20 years of Irish jurisprudence had upheld the view that the rights guaranteed under the Constitution derive from our nature as human beings and not our status as citizens. This means a law that distinguished between those seeking a judicial review on an asylum-related issue and those seeking it for another reason would be discriminatory, according to the Constitution.

At the same meeting Theresa Blake, on behalf of the Refugee Council, argued that the amendments in question had little to do with trafficking and really belonged in the Refugee Act. But, she said, they could not be inserted into that Act because our case law required any law to be interpreted in the context of the whole piece of legislation it was part of, and the Refugee Act contained protections for refugees which would contradict these measures. "It would put Ireland Inc in deep water with the international monitoring bodies," she said.

She also took issue with the stated aim of the Minister to reduce the number of "frivolous, vexatious or unmeritorious" cases taken. She pointed out that of the 30-odd cases of judicial review taken by asylum-seekers, the Minister had won only one. All the others had either been lost by him or settled -suggesting that the cases were far from vexatious or unmeritorious.

None the less, a spokesman for the Minister pointed to Britain, where the number of judicial reviews is rising and is threatening to hold up the asylum adjudication process. The Minister has also told the Dail that the amendments have been considered by the Attorney General to be constitutional.

However, Mr O'Donoghue cannot claim that he is following European best practice in this move. Indeed, a study he himself commissioned in the UCD law faculty, of the law in other EU countries relating to refugees and asylum-seekers, explicitly recommended against any such measure. "Any attempt . . . to justify abridgment of judicial review of the Refugee Appeal Board by reference to European standards would not be justifiable," it said.

According to Mr Finlay, it is possible to deal with the danger of adding to delays without "bludgeoning the whole issue of access to the courts".

He pointed out that existing delays are usually caused by the State seeking a number of adjournments, which forces the cases to be constantly re-entered in the court lists.

"If the rule that the State had to make its statement of opposition within three weeks was rigidly enforced, you could take this whole area out of the lists and put it into a separate list, and appoint a High Court judge in charge of an immigration division, like the crime division of the High Court, and let those cases be dealt with there.

"They'd all be disposed of within 4 1/2 months. It just means appointing a few more judges. That's the legal way to do it. There is a lawful, administrative way to deal with this."