The UK Court of Appeal has found that the British government misled the High Court during proceedings in which the Home Office denied child refugees entry into the UK to reunite with their families.
After the destruction of the Calais ‘Jungle’ refugee encampment in October 2016, over 1000 unaccompanied migrant children were interviewed for entry into the UK by the Home Office as they attempted to join their families under EU family reunification regulations. 530 of these applications were declined without adequate reason or explanation and the children were returned to France, where many are believed to have gone missing.
An application for judicial review was dismissed by the High Court in September 2017 as the court found that the expedited process by which the children were refused entry was not unlawful. However, this ruling has been overturned by the Court of Appeal which held that the High Court had been deliberately misled by the Home Office, stating that ‘‘an incomplete picture was left in the mind’’ of the presiding judge and that ‘‘significant evidence was not brought to the attention of the High Court.’’
This was based on the discovery of emails between the Home Office and their solicitors, in which the government was advised not to offer any explanation or reason why the children were prevented from entering the country, as this would allow the Home Office to evade the risk of legal challenges and appeals.
The High Court had been informed by the Secretary of State that the reason for the lack of explanation regarding these refusals was due to the fact that French immigration authorities had demanded the matter be dealt with urgently. However, French authorities had in fact requested reasons and evidence from the Home Office for its decisions. Such requests were reportedly declined by the Secretary of State.
The Court of Appeal stated that ‘‘the failure by those presenting evidence on behalf of the Secretary of State to inform the High Court that the reason why the reasons for an adverse decision in the expedited process were sparse was not because of the urgency nor because the French authorities demanded that, but because the British authorities did not wish to give more reasons and that this was because of a perceived risk of legal challenge to the decisions.’’
It was concluded that there was a breach of the duty of the Home Office to act fairly, and a breach of the duty of ‘‘candour and co-operation’’ by the Secretary of State during the court proceedings. Therefore, the High Court decision was overturned as the UK government had misled the court and that the process used by the Home Office was ‘‘unfair and unlawful as a matter of common law.’’
Click here for the full Court of Appeal judgement.