2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The case examined the lawfulness of the Detained Fast Track system for asylum seekers, focusing on whether it provided sufficient time for legal consultations. The court upheld previous findings of the system's proportionality with necessary flexibility but found current operations unlawful in certain sensitive cases. Adjustments made by the Secretary of State were deemed insufficient by the claimant, prompting an expedited appeal. The court concluded that while the system had issues, blanket remedies were inappropriate, and individualized cases should be addressed separately.
Judgment
Lord Justice Beatson :
I. Introduction
This appeal concerns a challenge to the Secretary of State for the Home Department’s policy, practice and procedure in respect of the detention of applicants for asylum in the fast-track system (“the DFT process”) after the refusal of asylum by the Secretary of State and pending an appeal against that decision. The DFT process is designed to facilitate the expeditious determination of applications for asylum and of appeals. It involves the detention of all applicants for asylum whose claims the Secretary of State considers can be determined quickly and a tight timetable for decisions on applications and appeals against a refusal of asylum to the First Tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal. Those who meet what I describe as the “quick processing criteria” in the Secretary of State’s Detained Fast-Track Processes Guidance (the “ DFT Guidance ”) are detained even if they do not meet the more stringent general detention criteria in her Enforcement Instructions and Guidance (“EIG”). The “general detention criteria” require all reasonable alternatives to be considered before detention is authorised and focus, for example, on whether a person poses a risk of absconding.
In these proceedings, Detention Action, a charity set up in 1993 to support individuals in immigration detention and to campaign on matters relevant to immigration detention, challenged a number of aspects of the DFT process. Before Ouseley J, its challenge was partially successful. The judge held that the way the Secretary of State operated the DFT process in the period until she determines an application for asylum was unlawful. He concluded that the very tight timetable created an unacceptably high risk of unfairness for those who are or may be vulnerable applicants who did not have access to lawyers sufficiently soon after detention in the DFT to enable advice to be given to them before their substantive asylum interview. His order dated 25 July 2014 reflects his decisions in two judgments, “the main judgment” ( [2014] EWHC 2245 (Admin) ), handed down on 9 July, and “the relief judgment” ( [2014] EWHC 2525 (Admin) ), handed down on 25 July after oral and written submissions on relief and ancillary matters. Unless otherwise indicated, my references to Ouseley J’s judgment are to his “main” judgment.
There are two matters on which Detention Action’s challenge did not succeed and on which it appealed against the judge’s order. The first matt