News

In R (SM) v the Lord Chancellor, Duncan Lewis Solicitors brought a challenge to the legal aid arrangements for immigration detainees held in prisons, which are less favourable than the arrangements for those detained in Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs).

In response to the litigation, the Lord Chancellor announced a wide-ranging review of the provision of legal aid to immigration detainees in prisons, but he maintained his defence that the current arrangements are lawful. Mr Justice Swift refused an application to stay the claim pending the results of this review holding that the issue of whether the Claimant had been discriminated against by the Lord Chancellor as the result of the current legal aid arrangements needed to be determined, regardless of any promise of a review in the future.

The Lord Chancellor’s review will aim to identify the best way to provide equal access to high quality specialist immigration advice to immigration detainees across the detention estate, and he intends to engage with bodies which represent the legal sector, NGOs and government stakeholders.

With the Home Secretary and others in the Home Office decrying last-minute challenges against the removal of individuals facing deportation by charter flight, the review of legal aid arrangements could not come at a more opportune moment.

The reality is that many individuals facing removal by charter flight are transferred from prison to an IRC only days before their removal. Whilst detained in prisons they face severe difficulties accessing legally aided immigration advice and representation. It is often only once they are transferred to an IRC, with days before their removal, that these individuals are able to access lawyers and ventilate their human rights, asylum or trafficking claims.

The final hearing in R (SM) v the Lord Chancellor took place on 25 and 26 November 2020 and a judgment is due to be made public before the end of 2020.


SM is represented by Toufique Hossain, Jeremy Bloom and Jonah Mendelsohn of the public law team at Duncan Lewis Solicitors, and counsel Chris Buttler of Matrix Chambers and Ali Bandegani of Garden Court Chambers.