The fast-track appeals process for asylum-seekers in detention is unlawful, the High Court has held.
Ruling in Detention Action v Secretary of State for the Home Office [2015] EWHC 1689 (Admin), Mr Justice Nicol concluded that this “looks uncomfortably akin to…sacrificing fairness on the altar of speed and convenience”.
He quashed the procedural rules governing the detained fast track asylum process. However, he also granted the Lord Chancellor’s request to stay the ruling until his appeal is heard in the Court of Appeal on the basis that it would be “inconvenient” for the order to take effect immediately.
He held that the fast track rules “do incorporate structural unfairness” and that “by allowing one party to the appeal to put the other at serious procedural disadvantage without sufficient judicial supervision, the rules are not securing that justice be done or that the tribunal system is fair.
