News

The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) Court of Appeal has upheld the decision to grant bail to 47 asylum seekers who have been stranded on Diego Garcia for nearly three years.

This month, Duncan Lewis secured a significant win in representing a group of Tamil asylum seekers trapped on Diego Garcia. For nearly three years, the asylum seekers have been kept in conditions that the UNHCR stated amount to arbitrary detention and have suffered tremendous hardships as a result of these delays and the Court’s inability to proceed with a hearing on Diego Garcia to ensure justice is done in their longstanding Judicial Review challenge. As a result of these delays, some asylum seekers have resorted to self-harm and suicide attempts and there have been instances where several Claimants collapsed during the legal proceedings.

The dire situation was acknowledged last month by BIOT Commissioner Paul Candler, who described the camp’s conditions as “dangerous and unsustainable” in a report to UK government ministers. He highlighted that children in particular are suffering from “immediate and ongoing harm” and noted that a member of his medical team described the camp as “in complete crisis.” Despite these alarming assessments, Mr. Candler opposed the granting of bail and sought to have it overturned by the Court of Appeal, preventing the exercise of freedoms until the appeal could be heard.

In a judgment delivered on Tuesday, 20 August 2024, a panel of three judges, including the President of the BIOT Appeal Court, rejected the Commissioner’s appeal. The Court expressed “very serious concern regarding the welfare of all the migrants on Diego Garcia, particularly the children” and emphasised the “extraordinary context” where the US, the Claimants, and the Commissioner all agreed that the asylum seekers “should leave Diego Garcia as a matter of urgency.”

The Court further stressed the importance of ensuring that “restrictions to freedom are as limited as possible.”

Simon Robinson, a Public Law solicitor at Duncan Lewis, commented on the judgment:

“We welcome our clients' victory in defending the small amount of liberty granted to them by the BIOT Supreme Court. We also strongly agree with the observations and “serious concerns” raised by the Court of Appeal with regards to the welfare of all asylum seekers, particularly the children, being held in Diego Garcia. 

The Commissioner is spending £108,000 per day detaining asylum seekers and children in deplorable conditions. He has fought at every level to prevent lawyers from visiting, the Court sitting on the territory, and in making provision for basic liberties to be exercised by vulnerable asylum seekers who have now been detained for 1,052 days.

We hope that the UK Government now acts expeditiously so that further serious harm to the asylum seekers and children can be avoided going forward.”

The Duncan Lewis legal team representing five of the claimants includes Toufique Hossain, Simon Robinson, Gina Skandari, Sulaiha Ali, with Ben Nelson, Guy Atoun, Kristen Allison, Jodie Spencer, and Sugani Suganathan of Duncan Lewis, alongside Chris Buttler KC and Jack Boswell of Matrix Chambers.

Duncan Lewis’ Public Law team, ranked as a leading firm in Chambers & Partners and The Legal 500 UK, has a broad practice representing both privately and publicly funded (legal aid) clients in matters involving immigration; asylum and human rights and deportation matters, with a niche practice in immigration and civil liberties claimant judicial review matters. They have significant practice in challenging delays in Home Office decision making, unlawful immigration detention cases with high net claims for damages and challenging immigration removal decisions, particularly third country removal cases.