News

Duncan Lewis Public Law Team have been granted permission to Judicial Review in relation to our client’s unlawful grant of Modern Slavery Discretionary Leave to Remain (“DLR”) and the Secretary of State for the Home Department’s (“SSHD”) use of unpublished policies or practices. Our client is a very vulnerable individual who was trafficked in the United Kingdom from 2000 until 2017, and this is the third Judicial Review application we have submitted in her case due to the SSHD continuous making of unreasonable and unlawful decisions.

Background

Our client was born in 1969 in the former USSR, and she moved to modern-day Latvia as a child. Following the break-up of the former USSR, and Latvia regaining independence, our client was issued a Latvian passport with “alien status”. We commissioned a country expert, Professor Bill Bowring, who concluded that having “alien status” means being a “non-citizen” who is unable to exercise EU treaty rights. As a non-citizen, work became very difficult and our client was struggling to pay rent. Worried that she would become homeless, she was offered a job overseas and was forced to sell her belongings to pay an agent.

Our client was deceived and trafficked to the United Kingdom in 2000 for the purpose of exploitation including by forced labour and domestic servitude. She was forced to work for the traffickers who trafficked her to the UK in fields, and she was subjected to treats, psychological and physical abuses until 2002 when she was left to her own devices. Our client was then found by another group of traffickers who forced her to work in different locations and at different jobs in the UK. Our client only managed to escape around the end of 2017. After being advised to go to a Citizens Advice Bureau, she was referred to the Salvation Army.

Despite being referred into the National Referral Mechanism in January 2018, our client had to wait until February 2020 for her positive Conclusive Grounds (“CG”) decision which, in any case, was only in relation to her trafficking experience for forced labour in the UK from 2000 until 2002, but not from 2002 until 2017. Around that same date, the Single Competent Authority (“SCA”) refused her DLR partly based on the assertion that although she was receiving counselling, the Latvian authorities could provide her protection as a “citizen”. This is when our client’s legal battle to obtain immigration status in the UK started.

Multiple immigration options were explored for our client. In 2021, she claimed asylum and attended an asylum screening interview which was a very traumatic experience for her. The SSHD did not allow the claim to proceed, and issued a letter deeming her asylum claim inadmissible stating that she is a national of Latvia, a safe EU member state. In 2022, our client applied for EU Settled Status under the EU Settlement Scheme. However, the SSHD erroneously refused her application on the basis that she made the application as a spouse or partner of an EEA citizen, despite our client’s application not being made on that basis. Due to her mental health conditions, our client was not stable enough to go through the process again and appeal her EUSS application.

In August 2022, we submitted a request to the SCA to consider our client’s trafficking experiences from 2002 until 2017 and to grant her DLR based on her personal circumstances as she had been diagnosed with severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, moderately severe depression and moderately severe anxiety as a result of her trafficking experiences and she had been receiving counselling since August 2020. DLR was also requested to pursue compensation and owing to the risk of re-trafficking in Latvia. In November 2022, the SCA made a positive CG decision for all instances of trafficking in the UK, i.e. from 2000 until 2017. However, no DLR decision was issued and delayed followed.

Following Pre-Action Protocol (“PAP”) correspondence, to which the SSHD failed to respond, DLR was refused in September 2023 on the basis that it was not required whilst our client’s asylum claim was being considered. There was in fact no pending asylum claim. Further PAP correspondence was submitted, and the SSHD agreed to withdraw the unlawful decision in November 2023.

In December 2023, the SSHD granted our client permission to stay as a victim of trafficking and slavery (“VTS leave”) for 13 months, i.e. until January 2025. The SSHD failed to adequately respond to our further PAP correspondence challenging the duration of the grant of 13 months due to our client’s need for long term psychological support to recover from her trafficking experiences and submitting that VTS was not the applicable leave and that instead a DLR decision should have been made. In March 2024, we submitted our client’s first application for Judicial Review. The SSHD agreed to withdraw the VTS decision via a sealed Consent Order, and the JR was thus withdrawn.

In July 2024, the SSHD made a new decision granting DLR to our client for 6 months, expiring on the same expiry date given in the first DL decision which had been withdrawn via Consent Order. As the PAP correspondence was again unsuccessful, we had to challenge this decision via a second Judicial Review in September 2024. Following disclosure received some days before making the JR application, an urgent PAP letter was sent raising an additional ground of challenge in that the decision of July 2024 was unlawful by reason of the SSHD’s operation of an unlawful policy or practice in relation to the duration of DLR. In October 2024, the SSHD proposed settlement and in November she reconsidered the decision and granted DLR until May 2025. Our client currently holds Section 3C Leave which has extended her expired DLR. Our client’s fee waiver application is now granted and we are assisting her in an application for an extension of her leave to remain.

Our client is a very vulnerable individual with permanent or very long-term recovery needs in relation to her mental conditions which result from her experience as a victim of modern slavery for over 15 years. As a victim of trafficking, she has received of specialised support from Hestia and Unseen since 2018, and her various support workers have instructed that she is extremely anxious about her immigration status, and the potential consequences it may have to her right to work in the UK and her access to welfare benefits that she relies on to survive. Currently, the uncertainty in relation to her immigration status is making her mental health deteriorate.

In February 2025 we submitted a PAP letter challenging the SSHD’s DLR decision of November 2024 and requesting that the SSHD issues our client Indefinite Leave to Remain based on the exceptional and compelling circumstances of her case. Since the PAP response was unsatisfactory, we lodged a third Judicial Review on 27 February 2025.

The Legal Challenge

This third Judicial Review lodged at the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) challenges the SSHD’s decision, dated 28 November 2024, by arguing that:

1. the SSHD wrongly granted 5 months’ DLR instead of the standard 30+ months, ignoring our client’s relevant personal circumstances and the evidence submitted. The SSHD failed to adhere to the published policy without good reason and breached her ECAT obligations;
2. the SSHD applied an unpublished or practice which was inconsistent with the published policy, contravening the “Lumba” principle of illegality;
3. the SSHD’s failure to determine the ILR request and evidence of exceptional circumstances breached the published policy;
4. the SSHD failed to provide any or any adequate or legally sustainable reasons for the decision/failure to determine ILR;
5. the SSHD breached the Tameside duty by failing to properly investigate whether longer leave or ILR was appropriate;
6. the SSHD’s mishandling and breach of two approved consent orders requires explanation in relation to contempt of court and support our client’s case exceptional circumstances; and
7. the SSHD acted unlawfully under s.6 Human Rights Act and breached our client’s Article 8 ECHR and 4 ECHR, read with ECAT.

We are pleased that, in response to our Judicial Review application and in light of the SSHD’s failure to adequately respond via her Acknowledgement of Service and Summary Grounds of Defence, on 28 April 2025, Judge Norton-Taylor granted permission to JR on all grounds and directed the SSHD to fully respond to our client’s case by way of detailed grounds of defence. We are currently awaiting the SSHD’s response.

Our client is represented by Solicitor Yasmin Adib and Senior Caseworker Claudia Pijoan Guerra. Catherine Meredith of Doughty Street Chambers has been instructed as Counsel.

Yasmin Adib is a Solicitor and Supervisor in the Immigration and Public Law Departments at Duncan Lewis Solicitors. She specialises in complex immigration, asylum, and public law matters, including unlawful detention, deportation challenges and human rights claims.

Contact her via yasminA@Duncanlewis.com or by telephone on 020 3114 1170.

Claudia Pijoan Guerra is a Senior Caseworker in the Immigration and Public Law Department at Duncan Lewis Solicitors. An LLM graduate in Human Rights, Conflict and Justice from SOAS, University of London, Claudia specialises in asylum, human rights, and public law matters, working under the supervision of Solicitor Yasmin Adib.

Contact her via claudiap@duncanlewis.com or by telephone on 020 7275 2765.

About Duncan Lewis Solicitors

Duncan Lewis Solicitors is a multi-award-winning national law firm renowned for exceptional legal services and commitment to justice. With expertise in 25 areas of law, the firm is ranked in Chambers & Partners and Legal 500 as a top-tier law firm and has been named a Times Top 250 Law Firm. Headquartered in London, the firm is recognised for its excellence in people management, holding the Investors in People Gold Standard Accreditation, and embraces a paperless, hybrid-working model. The firm was crowned law firm of the year at the LexisNexis awards 2024 and again at the Modern Law awards the year before.