Public Law Solicitors

Duncan Lewis Public law Director Toufique Hossain spoke to Afshin Rattansi on RT News Going Underground about the suspension of the Home Office’s fast-track detention program on RT News Going Underground on the 15th July 2015.

In the wake of the suspension of the suspension of the Home Office’s fast-track detention programme, Toufique Hossain joined RT News’ Afshin Rattansi to discuss the topic on the programme RT News Going Underground.

Toufique Hossain, who represented four of the twenty-seven claimants in the group litigation which led to the suspension of the fast-track programme, spoke to RT news as a figure “who represents hundreds of clients detained under the fast-track scheme”.

In a discussion with Afshin Rattansi In relation to these cases, Toufique stated;

“I think these cases illustrate the terrible failure by the home office in being unable to effectively recognise these types of cases.”

Discussing some of the Helen Bamber cases in which there was evidence of ill-treatment of clients, such as “branding, torture” and even “rape”, Rattansi raised the question of the future of the suspension of the fast-track system and the assistant that would be provided to asylum seekers coming to the UK for protection, to which Toufique responded;

“In the concession in the Helen Bamber cases, the Home Office have accepted that there was an unfair, unlawful risk to these people [...] I would say that the Home Secretary has made it clear that this is just a suspension of the fast-track system, for them to look into their internal procedures and to then identify and recognise the massive failures of their systems in place.”

The video of the interview can be found here.