R (Al Rawi) v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees intervening)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 12 October 2006 |
| Neutral Citation | [2006] EWCA Civ 1279 |
| Docket Number | Case No: C1/2006/1064 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 12 October 2006 |
[2006] EWCA Civ 1279
Lord Justice Brooke,
Vice-President of The Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
Lord Justice Lawsand
Lady Justice Smith Dbe
Case No: C1/2006/1064
Mr Rabinder Singh QC, Mr Tim Otty, Mr Raza Husain and Mr Guglielmo Verdirame (instructed by Messrs Birnberg Peirce & Partners) for the Appellants Mr Christopher Greenwood QC, Mr Philip Sales and Mr Ben Hooper (instructed by Treasury Solicitors) for the Respondents Mr Guy S Goodwin-Gill (instructed by Baker & McKenzie LLP) for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, intervening Mr Andrew Nicol QC (instructed by Treasury Solicitors as Special Advocate) was not called upon
INDEX
INTRODUCTORY Paragraph 1
RELEVANT PROVISIONS OF THE ECHR Paragraph 7
RELEVANT PROVISIONS OF THE REFUGEE CONVENTION Paragraph 8
THE FACTS:
The Divisional Court Narrative Paragraph 9
Background Outline Paragraph 10
The Detention of Mr Al Rawi and Mr El Banna Paragraph 11
Treatment of the Detainee Claimants Paragraph 16
The Family Claimants Paragraph 18
Treatment of Detainees at Guantanamo Bay: General Paragraph 24
The Position of the First Respondent as at the Date of the Divisional Court's Judgment
Paragraph 28
The Position of the First Respondent as at the Date of the Court of Appeal Hearing
Paragraph 38
The Position of the Second Respondent at the Date of the Court of Appeal Hearing
Paragraph 49
Postscript on the Facts Paragraph 56
THE ISSUES Paragraph 57
The Race Relations Act and Article 14 Paragraph 65
Legitimate Expectation Paragraph 88
The Family Claimants' Rights under ECHR Articles 3 and 8 Paragraph 91
Nationality and International Law Paragraph 115
Material Considerations: Wednesbury Paragraph 131
Lesser Forms of Relief Paragraph 142
CONCLUSIONS Paragraph 144
LAWS LJ:
This is the judgment of the court prepared by Laws LJ.
INTRODUCTORY
The first three appellants ("the detainee claimants") are imprisoned by the American authorities in the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. They were previously resident in the United Kingdom, having been granted indefinite leave to remain. They are not British nationals. Two of them, Mr El Banna and Mr Deghayes, have been granted asylum here. The other appellants ("the family claimants") are members of their families. They are all resident in the United Kingdom. On behalf of all the appellants representations have been made to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (the first respondent) that he (Mrs Beckett had not then succeeded Mr Straw in that office) should make a formal request of the American authorities for the release of the detainee claimants. He declined to do so (the first respondent has now issued a request in respect of Mr Al Rawi, but on a basis different from that urged by the appellants) . So the appellants sought orders of the High Court to the effect that the first respondent should make the request. The evidence is that it is against her (and her predecessor's) better judgment to do so. She considers that it would probably be seen by the United States as unjustified special pleading by the United Kingdom, and would be likely to be both ineffective and counterproductive.
On conventional public law principles that would have been the end of the matter. The first respondent's judgment could hardly be impugned as perverse in the Wednesbury sense ( [1948] 1 KB 223) ; although, as we shall show, Mr Rabinder Singh QC for the appellants has in fact sought to mount a Wednesbury challenge. But in any case the conduct of foreign relations by the executive government of the United Kingdom would have been regarded as beyond the scope of judicial review. A generation or more ago the courts would we think have said there was no jurisdiction to conduct such a review. More recently the line would have been – has been – that the conduct of foreign relations is so particularly the responsibility of government that it would be wrong for the courts to tread such ground; and aside from the division of constitutional territory, the courts have not the competence to pass objective judgment, hardening into law, in so intricate an area of State practice. However in this case, on 16 February 2006, Collins J granted permission to seek judicial review of the United Kingdom's response to requests for assistance in securing the release and return of the detainee claimants. The case was heard by the Divisional Court (Latham LJ and Tugendhat J) on 22 and 23 March 2006. No point as to jurisdiction was taken. The Foreign Secretary and the Home Secretary were both impleaded, respectively as first and second respondent, the latter because the appellants sought relief which would secure the re-admission of the detainee claimants into the United Kingdom. The Divisional Court dismissed the application on 4 May 2006. Brooke LJ granted permission to appeal on 15 May 2006 and directed that the appeal be expedited. The appeal was argued before us over three days from 24 to 26 July 2006. The case could hardly have got less summary treatment at the hands of the courts.
What has been the engine of so painstaking a review in an area which in recent years was thought barely apt for judicial review at all? The prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, some of them at least, have suffered grave privations. In this appeal we should in our judgment proceed on the premise that the detainee claimants have been subjected at least to inhuman and degrading treatment. We say at least; the appellants claim they have been tortured. Although the respondents certainly make no unqualified admission of such misconduct (and the United States authorities have consistently denied any allegations of ill treatment) , they do not as we understand it suggest that we should not, strictly for the purpose of this litigation, proceed on the premise we have stated. The family claimants assert that they too have suffered intensely (and continue to do so) by reason of the plight of the detainee claimants. The Divisional Court accepted that their suffering was at a level sufficient to engage Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights ("ECHR") (judgment, paragraph 83) .
The case is thus acute on its facts. But this on its own makes no rule that the executive's conduct of foreign relations is justiciable. The force which seeks to press the courts into this area, and within it to exercise a robust independent judgment, is the legal and ethical muscle of human rights and refugee status.
The appellants' arguments are not however all based on propositions of human rights law. There are other points, notably on the Race Relations Act 1976 ("the RRA") . But to our mind the centre of the case consists in appeals to the appellants' human rights and, in the case of Mr El Banna and Mr Deghayes, refugee status. We have to decide how far such appeals should rightly press the courts into territory they do not generally occupy or have not so far occupied.
In fact the law of human rights in the context of what has happened at Guantanamo Bay is not virgin to the English courts. They have visited it in an earlier, recent decision, Abbasi [2003] UKHRR 76, in which similar claims were made to some of those put forward in this case. In Abbasi the detainee claimant was a British nationals. The claims were dismissed in the High Court and this court. One might have thought, since here the detainee claimants are not British nationals, that Abbasi is a fortiori the present case, and the respondent Secretaries of State submit that that is so. But various points of distinction are suggested. Clearly we must pay careful attention to the Abbasi decision, as did the Divisional Court.
RELEVANT PROVISIONS OF THE ECHR
It is convenient at this stage to set out ECHR Articles 1, 3, 8 and 14, and the first paragraph of Article 1 of the First Protocol:
"1. The High Contracting Parties shall secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in Section I of this Convention.
3. No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
8.(1) Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
(2) There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
14. The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.
[Article 1 Protocol 1] Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law…"
RELEVANT PROVISIONS OF THE 1951 CONVENTION RELATING TO THE STATUS OF REFUGEES ("THE REFUGEE CONVENTION")
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