In The Press

Husein Meghji, of the Public Law Team at Duncan Lewis, has written for Free Movement on the Home Office’s decision to further amend their removal policy following a challenge brought by two asylum-seekers. The policy, entitled ‘Judicial reviews and injunctions’, otherwise known as the ‘Chapter 60 policy’, will now offer greater clarity to individuals and representatives in “removal window” cases (where the Home Office considers itself able to remove a person under immigration powers without further notice after expiry of an initial notice period). In R (FB and NR) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, the applicants were given permission to bring a judicial review against the policy. Following the judgment, the Home Office has been forced to further amend its policy (after two previous amendments this year since this litigation began in November 2017), releasing version 17 which introduces two new removal notices, RED.005 and RED.006. The latter will be used where individuals’ notice period has been extended to give them an opportunity to obtain legal advice and/or access the courts, and is intended to directly implement the Upper Tribunal’s findings in its judgment. Husein has written: ‘The outcome of the litigation has been the revision of the policy to introduce greater flexibility — including provisions to ensure consideration is given to whether deferral of removal is necessary on the facts — and new safeguards to ensure there is greater certainty for those who are subject to removal windows.’ The legal team for the Applicants was Toufique Hossain, Raja Uruthiravinayagan and Husein Meghji.