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Judicial review is the process in which individuals can hold public bodies, such as the Home Office and Local Authorities, to account. Any decisions by these bodies must be fair, rational and reasonable and in accordance with law.

PUBlic Law

If you have received a decision which you feel is wrong and does not come with a right of appeal or wrongly states there is no right of appeal, then the way to challenge such a decision is by way of a Judicial Review.

S&H are leading practitioners in this field with successes across such aspects as cases as:

  • Challenging lawfulness of detention and false imprisonment claims

  • Challenging refusals of fresh asylum claims

  • Challenging certification of asylum and human rights claims

  • Challenging notices of inadmissibility of asylum claims

  • Challenging refusals of permission by the Upper Tribunal

  • Refusal/withdrawal of asylum support or support for victims of modern slavery

  • Challenges to negative reasonable grounds and conclusive grounds decisions for victims of modern slavery

  • Challenges to refusal to grant leave to remain to victims of modern slavery

  • Challenges to age assessment decisions

  • Challenges to withdrawal of support by local authorities

  • Challenging unsuccessful administrative review decisions

S&H have worked on some notable cases which have resulted in important movements in the law:

Restoration of currency of Iraqi country guidance


QA v SSHD C4/2017/2737 on appeal from the Admin Court R (on the application of Amin) [2017] EWHC 2417 (Admin)
Acted for the Appellant. Obtained leave to appeal to appeal against the decision of the Administrative Court in which he had overrode the Country Guidance decision of the Upper Tribunal in AA(Article 15C) Iraq [2015] which had found Kirkuk to be a contested territory. The Home Office subsequently conceded the appeal, paying the Appellant’s costs. The decision of Admin Court had been extensively relied upon by the Home Office and the Lower court’s in order to deny a protection entitlement to Iraqi asylum seekers. Quashing the decision restored AA’s status as a binding precedent and obliged decision makers distinguish the findings in the same by reference to prevailing country evidence, and where they could not, required they acknowledge a protection entitlement.

Country Guidance properly construed entitling Iraqi asylum seeker to a fresh claim


R (on the application of H) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department (application of AA (Iraq CG)) IJR [2017] UKUT 00119 (IAC)
The Upper Tribunal revisited its own decision in the country guidance case of AA (Article 15(c)) Iraq CG [2015] UKUT 00544 (IAC) in this judicial review, emphasising that a proper reading of that determination did not enable decisions makers to suspend their assessment of an applicant’s entitlement to international protection merely because they could not currently be returned, owing to a lack of particular travel documentation. Rather, it obliged a thorough and particular review of the individual circumstances of that applicant in order to determine whether a claim to international protection could be made out by reference to other factors apart from documentation, such as ethnicity, gender, age and strength of attachments.

Settlement obtained for a Philippine family wrongly denied status


Gonzales v the Secretary of State for the Home Department (on appeal from [2014] EWHC 1813 (Admin). The applicants asserted an entitlement to indefinite leave to remain contending a proper interpretation and application of the Home Offices policy statements issued under what was known as the Legacy scheme entitled them to the same. They were ultimately successful in the Court of Appeal following 6 years of determined litigation the Home Office conceding their appeal at the door of the court and granting settlement.

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