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Duncan Lewis’ clients, MAK and TM, fled their countries of origin due to persecution. On their way to the UK, they passed through Libya.
MAK was 12 years old when he was subjected to forced labour in Libya. When he left Libya, his boat was intercepted by Libyan officials soon after leaving the Libyan coast. He was taken to a Libyan detention centre where he suffered torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. After arriving in the UK, MAK learned that his cousin was hanged in prison in Libya.

TM was held captive in Libya for many months. The conditions of his detention amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment. He was subjected to regular beatings and saw guards in the detention centre execute and rape detainees. TM is in touch with his cousin in Libya who continues to be detained in a detention centre there.

On 18 April 2019, Duncan Lewis sent a pre-action protocol letter to the Secretaries of State for International Development and for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (the Defendants). In that letter, they challenged the failure of the Defendants to properly assess the risk that UK international assistance to Libya under DFID and FCO-led funding programmes might contribute to violations of International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law. Funding through these programmes included assistance to the Libyan Coastguard and to Detention Centres in Libya, both of which may have contributed to the abuses suffered by the Claimants.

The Defendants made an inadequate response to the pre-action letter, asserting that the Claimants did not have standing to bring the claims, and that the Defendants had no obligation deriving from their policies to monitor and assess the human rights risks arising from the international assistance that they provided.

On 30 April 2020, the Claimants filed their claim for judicial review. The claim sought to ensure that when the UK provides assistance to countries like Libya where human rights abuses are systemic and ongoing, it does so within a rigorous framework of risk assessment, with adequate oversight and accountability. The Claimants challenged the failure of the Defendants to apply their policy on risk assessment to the funding programmes in question, and the failure to assess or reassess the provision of assistance in light of the dire and deteriorating situation in Libya. The Claimants sought an order directing the Defendants to refrain from providing assistance under the programmes until an up to date risk assessment was made.

In their summary grounds of defence, the Defendants position markedly changed. The Defendants asserted that the assistance provided to migrants in detention centres in Libya had ceased in May 2019 and that training to the Libyan Coastguard had ceased in December 2019. In addition to this, the Defendants accepted that the policy on risk assessment did in fact apply to the FCO funding programme, and that the requisite risk assessments were undertaken as a result.

In light of this change in position, the Claimants considered that they had obtained the relief that they sought and withdrew their claim for judicial review. Duncan Lewis welcomes the outcome of this challenge, which led directly to changes in UK aid where the risks of that aid contributing to human rights violations is not properly assessed, or where that risk cannot be properly managed.

The Claimants were represented by Toufique Hossain, Jeremy Bloom, Isabella Kirwan, Helen Baron and Philip Armitage, and instructed Richard Hermer QC at Matrix Chambers, and Ali Bandegani at Garden Court Chambers.