In a judicial review against the Lord Chancellor, Duncan Lewis has successfully challenged the blanket refusal to provide legal aid funding for judicial reviews where permission was refused on the papers. The result will assist legal aid providers representing some of the most vulnerable in society and should in turn enhance access to justice. Read more...
Following a hearing that took place on 11 October 2018, Mr Justice William Davis, a High Court Judge sitting in the Upper Tribunal, ruled that the Home Office unlawfully removed ‘QH’, an exceptionally vulnerable young Afghan male, to Germany. As a result, the Court has today ordered the Home Office to take steps to return QH to the UK so that his asylum claim can be decided here. Read more...
Duncan Lewis’ public law director Toufique Hossain gave oral evidence in connection to the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) inquiry into immigration detention on Wednesday 21st November at the Palace of Westminster. Read more...
The Afghanistan and Central Asian Association (ACAA) and the Campaign for Human Rights for the People of Afghanistan (CHRA) hosted the People of Afghanistan Look to the Future conference as part of Parliament Week, bringing together speakers from different sectors to discuss key issues affecting Afghan people in the UK today. Read more...
The judgment in R (FB and NR) v SSHD (JR/9948/2017 and JR/9949/2017), was handed down on 31st October 2018. The Upper Tribunal (UT) found the Home Office removals policy (‘Judicial reviews and injunctions’, Version v15.0) to be unlawful in several respects, as detailed below. Read more...
Ahmed Aydeed, a solicitor and director at Duncan Lewis Solicitors, spoke as a panel member on Medical Expert Evidence in Immigration and Public Law at a seminar held at Matrix Chambers on 30 October 2018. Read more...
On Wednesday 31st October, Ahmed Aydeed, a solicitor and director of public law based at Duncan Lewis Solicitors’ Birmingham branch, spoke at the Islington North Black and Minority Ethnic Forum, Black History Month event. Read more...
As a firm, Duncan Lewis currently represents a number of individuals who are subject to immigration control, but are detained within the prison estate as opposed to within immigration removal centres. We have commenced judicial review proceedings on their behalf, primarily arguing that the Lord Chancellor, the Director of Legal Aid Casework and/or the Secretary of State for the Home Department are squarely discriminating against those held under immigration powers who are detained within prisons when compared to detainees in immigration removal centres. Read more...
Mr. Bah was referred to Duncan Lewis by Medical Justice, with preliminary medical evidence suggesting that he may have been unable to adequately ventilate his protection claim in the United Kingdom due to severe mental illness. Throughout January 2018, Duncan Lewis challenged the lawfulness of Mr. Bah’s continued detention. In the judgment handed down on 2 November 2018, it was conceded that the failure to conduct an initial medical examination pursuant to Rule 34 of the Detention Centre Rules 2001 was unlawful. The Court held that Mr. Bah’s detention for the following four weeks was unlawful. Read more...
We are pleased to announce that director of public law and immigration, Toufique Hossain, has received outstanding recognition in The Legal 500 2018-2019 edition, receiving recommendations in four practice areas, including being ranked as a ‘Next Generation Lawyer’ for Administrative and Public Law in London. Read more...
On Tuesday 16th October, a number of our specialist legal practitioners attended the Waging Peace legal clinic at Garden Court Chambers to provide advice for individuals who needed to know the best steps to take in their legal matter. Read more...
As we see this year’s Legal Week come to a close, we look back on what went on at King’s College London. Legal practitioners from Duncan Lewis were invited to discuss their experiences as professionals in the legal sector at the largest legal aid firm in the UK. Read more...
Duncan Lewis is very pleased to announce that solicitor Stefan Vnuk has joined its Public Law department. Stefan has joined Duncan Lewis from Lupins Solicitors, where he was Head of Department, and brings with him over 20 years’ worth of legal experience. Read more...
On Tuesday 9th October, Toufique Hossain, a director of immigration public law at Duncan Lewis, was invited to speak at the first Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA) conference on immigration detention. Toufique Hossain, who heads a team of almost 50 immigration and public law lawyers at Duncan Lewis’ head office in Harrow, was asked to attend to speak on a number of key challenges he is bringing to raise awareness of the issues which face immigration detainees in the UK today. Read more...
Further to the success brought by Duncan Lewis which resulted in the Government agreeing to amend the Civil Legal Aid (Procedure) Regulations 2012 to allow for legal aid certificates to be backdated, this judicial review continues the fight for access to justice, in a challenge to a different Legal Aid Regulation that stands in the way of providers continuing to assist those who are most in need. Read more...
Following legal proceedings the Home Office have backed down and agreed to the appointment of the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) to undertake a bespoke and independent Article 3 ECHR-compliant investigation into abuse of detainees at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) that was exposed by a BBC Panorama documentary in September 2017. Read more...
Duncan Lewis Solicitors are the claimant in a claim for judicial review of the Legal Aid Agency’s refusal to backdate legal aid certificates, even where solicitors have made a legal aid application as promptly as possible and it is necessary to begin work in order to secure access to justice for a client before the Legal Aid Agency has granted a certificate. Our contention in the litigation is that the Legal Aid Agency and Lord Chancellor have failed to recognise that the legal aid regulations must contain an implied power to backdate certificates, or are ultra vires. Read more...
Yesterday, 4th October, the Court of Appeal has handed down a landmark judgment pertaining to the detention of individuals under Dublin III Regulation. The conjoined hearing of appeals related to three judgments that covered the cases of five individuals who were placed in detention for periods pending possible removal to other EU Member States pursuant to the asylum claim arrangements under the so-called Dublin III Regulation. Read more...
Our Public Law team have issued Judicial Review proceedings challenging £1 per hour wages within immigration detention centres. The case is a landmark challenge to the detention centre pay regime, first introduced in 2008. In 2016/2017, over 880,000 hours of paid work was carried out by immigration detainees. The vast majority of this work was rewarded with £1 per hour pay (as the ‘specified project’ rate of £1.25 is rarely used). Read more...
In Chowdhury v United Kingdom, under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has decided to indicate to the Government of the United Kingdom that the Applicant should not be removed for the duration of the proceedings before the Court. Read more...
In CP (Vietnam) v Secretary of State for the Home Department the High Court ruled in favour of the Claimant, concluding that the Secretary of State for the Home Department (SSHD) had breached the Claimant’s protective obligations under Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights and detained him unlawfully. Read more...
We are thrilled to announce that Duncan Lewis’ Ahmed Aydeed has been shortlisted for the coveted Human Rights Lawyer of the Year award at the 2018 Law Society Excellence Awards. Read more...
Following the filing of judicial review proceedings in the Administrative Court of Justice on 19 December 2017, the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) agreed to pay the Claimant, the full costs of challenging the LAA’s original decision to revoke the Claimant’s public funding certificate, during the course of the Claimant’s prior successful judicial review proceedings against the Secretary of State for the Home Department (SSHD). Read more...
The Public Law team at Duncan Lewis have issued Judicial Review proceedings on behalf of the Claimant who was held under immigration powers in prison. Read more...
Duncan Lewis is pleased to congratulate Lewis Kett, a solicitor in the Public Law department, on his award for Legal Aid Newcomer at the Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year (LALY) Awards. The Legal Aid Newcomer Award exists to recognise the young legal aid lawyers aspiring to be the future leaders in this practice. Read more...
Duncan Lewis are very pleased to announce that Solicitor Alex Peebles has recently been appointed as a Director of Public Law and Court of Protection. Since Alex joined Duncan Lewis in April 2017, he has become a prominent presence in the legal fields of Court of Protection, Regulatory law and in Civil Liberties & Human Rights, whilst supporting the growth and development of the respective departments overall. With 10 years’ PQE in a wide range of Public Law matters, Alex is experienced in handling matters in the tax tribunal, High Court, Court of Appeal, European Court of Human Rights and Court of Protection. Read more...
Duncan Lewis Solicitors have been granted permission in a claim for judicial review to challenge the lawfulness of the Civil Legal Aid (Procedure) Regulations 2012, (the Procedure Regulations), and the Legal Aid Agency’s (LAA) interpretation of these regulations.The LAA’s position is that the Procedure Regulations do not allow it to make legal aid payments for work undertaken before it grants funding. The effect of this contention is that legal aid providers are not reimbursed for work properly undertaken on an emergency basis before the LAA is able to consider an application and grant funding. Another potential effect is that legal aid providers simply will not carry out this work, as they cannot be reimbursed for it by the LAA. Read more...
Duncan Lewis Solicitors is proud to announce that Public Law and Immigration Director, Bahar Ata, has been selected as a finalist for the Legal Expert Award at the CILEx National Awards 2018. The awards ceremony will be presented on the 6th September 2018 at the stunning Underglobe, Shakespeare Globe Theatre, London. The CILEx National Awards Ceremony will showcase and celebrate the excellent work, and achievements, of CILEx members and stakeholder partners. Read more...
On 27 June, Patrick Page, a senior caseworker in the public law department at Duncan Lewis spoke at Parliament about his experience advising and assisting children in the Calais ‘Jungle’ on their applications to come to the UK under the ‘Dubs Amendment’. After the screening of ‘Calais Children: A Case to Answer’, Patrick remembered how, when he and his colleagues spent time in the Jungle, the children they spoke to were ‘trying’ every night to board lorries, risking their lives to enter the UK; some had been trying for over a year and had bruises and cuts to show for it. Conversely, when Patrick and his team returned to the UK, they were required only to show their passports to the border guards, and half an hour later they were in Dover. He concluded that until countries like the UK opened their borders, tens of thousands of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children would continue to remain in limbo, vulnerable to exploitation. Read more...
The Court of Appeal has granted permission to appeal in the case of TM (Kenya) v SSHD (C4/2017/3270), which challenges the High Court judgment in Muasa v SSHD [2017] EWHC 2267 insofar as it found against the Claimant. Read more...
On 19th June, Patrick Page, a Senior Caseworker in the Public Law team in Harrow spoke on the keynote panel at a SOAS conference on ‘Empathy in Practice’. He shared the panel with Juliet Mabey, the founder of Oneworld Publications, and David Francis, a PhD student at the British Museum. Patrick spoke about his work exposing the indignity of immigration detention, and criticised the lack of empathy shown by detention officers, Home Office caseworkers and national leaders towards those who are detained. Read more...
Members of the public law team at Duncan Lewis recently attended the reading of a verdict of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) on Turkey and the Kurds. Delivered on 24 May in the European Parliament, the PPT found Erdogan and the Turkish state guilty of war crimes, and crimes against humanity against the Kurdish people. Read more...
On 17 May, Patrick Page and Nicholas Hughes of the Harrow Public Law Team, spoke to students at Oxford University about challenging unlawful policies and practices in immigration detention. Read more...
Yesterday (23rd May 2018) the Secretary of State for the Home Department (SSHD) published amendments to his removals policy (at Chapter 60 of his Enforcement Guidance and Instructions, titled ‘Judicial Review and injunctions’) in direct response to proceedings issued by Duncan Lewis Solicitors on 28th November 2017. The changes reflect concessions made in April this year by the SSHD in the course of these proceedings. Read more...
Duncan Lewis Solicitors and Garden Court Chambers represent a number of young asylum-seekers who were told by the Home Office that they cannot study. In some cases, we have obtained last minute court orders allowing individual clients to study and sit exams. Read more...
H was trafficked to the UK from Vietnam as a child. He was taken captive in Ho Chi Minh City by his traffickers aged 15. He was tortured, raped and forced into debt bondage. He was beaten with electrified sticks and burned with heated rods. He was then trafficked to the U.K, deliberately starved, deprived of his liberty, and forced to tend cannabis plants in Derbyshire. Read more...
Ahmed Aydeed, a solicitor and director at Duncan Lewis Solicitors, was invited to appear on the panel at Matrix Chambers on the 25 April 2018 to discuss modern slavery and trafficking in the UK. Read more...
Duncan Lewis is pleased to announce that Public Law Solicitor Lewis Kett has been shortlisted for Legal Aid Newcomer at the forthcoming Legal Aid Practitioners Group Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year (LALY) Awards. Read more...
The Duncan Lewis Solicitors Public Law Department has launched ‘No Walls’, an open forum dedicated to discussions on public law, human rights, immigration, and asylum. Read more...
In January, the Home Office made changes to temporary admission and immigration bail. As a result, individuals have been issued new Bail 201 forms setting out immigration bail conditions. Read more...
On 24 April 2018, the Royal Marsden Hospital finally committed to giving Duncan Lewis’ client Albert Thompson the radiotherapy treatment that he requires to treat his prostate cancer; however the NHS Charging Regulations remain unlawful. Read more...
A group of lawyers specialising in Public Law from Duncan Lewis Solicitors were invited to attend a session of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal on 15 and 16 March. The tribunal looked into accusations that the Turkish state is guilty of war crimes and has engaged in state terrorism against the Kurdish people. Read more...
Duncan Lewis Solicitors have launched a High Court challenge, on behalf of our client, into the inadequacy of initial health screenings in Immigration Removal Centres, and failures in the Rule 34 and 35 processes. Read more...
The Public Law team at Duncan Lewis Solicitors are representing an Afghan minor, who lived in the Calais ‘Jungle’, in bringing a challenge against the Secretary of State for the Home Department for failing in her duties under the ‘Dubs Amendment’. The case is due to be heard in the High Court on 28 February and 1 March. Read more...
Duncan Lewis Solicitors are pleased to congratulate Public Law Director, Ahmed Aydeed as he is named a finalist in the Birmingham Law Society Awards 2018 for Partner of the Year. Since becoming a Director in Duncan Lewis’ Birmingham branch in 2017, Ahmed has proven to be a dedicated and integral leader in the department of Public Law, as recognised in this nomination. Read more...
Duncan Lewis Solicitors’ Public Law team led a challenge against the Home Office on behalf of two former-detainees, which on 1 February 2018 the High Court ruled in favour of, forcing the Home Office to take responsibility for the unlawful conditions within detention centre Brook House. Read more...
The High Court judgment, on conditions in immigration detention, is due to be handed down tomorrow, 1 February 2018, at the Royal Court of Justice (court 49). The ruling will discuss whether the Home Office has illegally allowed the smoking ban to be contravened in detention centres. The court will also make a finding on whether the lock-in regime at Brook House IRC, which forces detainees to be locked into their cells for up to 13 hours a day, discriminates against Muslim detainees who are forced to pray next to an open toilet in potentially unsanitary conditions. The challenge was brought by the public law team of Duncan Lewis Solicitors, on behalf of clients detained at Brook House IRC. The cases were heard in the High Court on 23 - 24 January 2018. Read more...
This month Duncan Lewis Solicitors have launched a High Court challenge, on behalf of our client, into the Home Secretary’s failure to instigate a public inquiry into serious and systemic abuse of detainees by G4S staff at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre. Read more...