The case of Hameed and Jabeen v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWHC 1579, held that the claimants’ detention under the Detained Fast Track Procedure for 106 days while their asylum claims were determined was unlawful.
The claimants were entitled to damages for the full detention, due to the fact that the procedure was systematically unfair.
Detained Fast Track System
This case considered the Detained Fast Track asylum process, which meant that all people entering the UK, and seeking asylum in the UK, were automatically detained upon entering the country, throughout the asylum application and appeal.
The applications for asylum under this process were also fast tracked, meaning that they were decided in a matter of weeks, including an appeal.
The Detained Fast Track Procedure has been heavily criticised for its automatic deprivation of applicants’ liberty for administrative convenience, without any consideration of the applicants’ individual circumstances, and on the basis that the procedure did not allow for asylum claims to be considered fairly.
Detention Action
The legality of the process was challenged by the charity, Detention Action, which successfully obtained a judgment in which it was stated that the process was systematically unfair and unlawful. Detention Action also successfully defended appeals made by the Secretary of State in respect of the legality of the process.
The Detained Fast Track Process was suspended by the Secretary of State on 2 July 2015 and has not been reinstated.
Unlawful damages
The claimants in this case made a claim for damages as a result of their detention under the Detained Fast Track Process. This was successful, although the decision in their case had been made before the final decision on the Detention Action case.
The damages were not awarded by the Court at the hearing but it was held that the damages would be assessed by the London Central Trial Centre, if they had not been agreed by the parties within the next three months.
In respect of the amount of damages, the Court also went as far as to say:
“Such damages are not to be reduced or assessed as being nominal and should take account of the ill-health of each of them, the general inconvenience, humiliation and distress at their lengthy period of unlawful detention, the glaringly unlawful nature of that detention and the failure by the SSHD to recognise, accept or apologise for that unlawful detention at any stage up to and including the present”.
Claim for damages
This case confirms that people detained under the Detained Fast Track process will be able to make a claim for damages in respect of their detention, unless the Secretary of State is able to justify their detention. For a guideline on the damages you may be entitled to, please click here.