R (Al Rawi) v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees intervening)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 04 May 2006 |
| Neutral Citation | [2006] EWHC 458 (Admin),[2006] EWHC 972 (Admin) |
| Date | 04 May 2006 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISIONAL COURT
Before Lord Justice Latham and Mr Justice Tugendhat
THE COURT could not interfere in relationships between sovereign states unless a breach of some clear duty in domestic or international law had been identified.
The Queen's Bench Divisional Court so held in dismissing the claims of Bisher Al Rawi, Jamil El Banna, Omar Deghayes, Wahab Al Rawi, Jahida Sayyadi, Sabah Sunnoqrot and Abubaker Deghayes for judicial review of the refusal of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to request that the US should release and return British-associated Guantanamo Bay prisoners.
They sought declarations, inter alia, that the secretary of state was under a duty to make such a request and that the prisoners should benefit from the same representations to the US government as had benefited their now released British Guantanamo contemporaries. The Secretary of State for the Home Department was joined as second respondent.
The first, second and third claimants, were not British nationals but all had had long term residency in Britain. Each appeared to have suffered serious abuses at Baghram and median maltreatment at Guantanamo, in contravention of the Convention Against Torture and other Cruel Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 1984 (Cmd 1775) CHECK. The third claimant appeared additionally to have suffered serious abuses at Guantanamo and as a result he was now half blind.
The fourth to seventh claimants, some of whom were British, were relatives of the first three.
The Foreign Secretary had repeatedly refused to request the return of the first three claimants on the basis that no obligation to do so was owed to them as non-British nationals.
Mr Rabinder Singh, QC, Mr Timothy Otty and Mr Raza Husain for the claimants; Mr Christopher Greenwood, QC, Mr Philip Sales and Mr Benjamin Hooper for the respondents.
LORD JUSTICE LATHAM, giving the judgment of the court, said that whatever view the court were to take as to the stance so far taken by the first respondent, it could not require him to make a formal request.
That would be an interference in the relationship between sovereign states which could only be justified if a clear duty in domestic or international law had been identified. There was no such duty in the present case.
The question what, if any...
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