Re Mahmod (Wasfi Suleman)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 17 January 1994 |
| Date | 17 January 1994 |
| Court | Immigration Appeals Tribunal |
Queen's Bench Division
Laws J
R Scannell for the applicant
R Jay for the respondent
Case referred to in the judgment:
R v Governor of Durham Prison ex parte Hardial SinghWLRUNK [1984] 1 WLR 704: [1984] 1 All ER 983.
Habeas corpus — deportation order against applicant following recommendation by court on conviction for drug offence — difficulties in securing admission to Germany — applicant in administrative detention for ten months — whether period of detention unreasonable. Immigration Act 1971 s. 6, sch. 3 para. 2(3).
The applicant seeking a writ of habeas corpus was a citizen of Iraq who had been granted indefinite leave to remain in Germany as a refugee. In January 1991 he sought leave to enter the United Kingdom as a visitor. He was found to be in possession of opium. He was subsequently sentenced to four years' imprisonment: the court recommended he be deported.
The Secretary of State signed a deportation order against him on 3 March 1992. In March 1993 he was granted parole, but was immediately detained pursuant to paragraph 2(3) of schedule 3 of the 1971 Act. Difficulties arose in persuading the German authorities to accept his return. In consequence he was still detained in January 1994. Counsel argued that the period of detention was unreasonable.
Held
1. Following Hardial Singh there was a limit, albeit unspecified, to the length of time a person might be detained reasonably under schedule 3 of the 1971 Act.
2. Whatever that limit might be it had clearly been exceeded in the present case.
Laws J: This is an application for a writ of habeas corpus. It arises in circumstances which I find disturbing.
On 3 January 1991 the applicant sought leave to enter the United Kingdom as a visitor. He had earlier been recognised as a refugee from Iraq by the authorities in Germany. On 14 January 1985 he had been given indefinite leave to remain in that country. When he arrived here he was refused admission. Customs officers discovered that he was in possession of a significant quantity of opium having a street value of some £9,780. He was prosecuted and, on 9 September 1991, was convicted at the Isleworth Crown Court of an offence of illegal importation of a controlled drug. He was sentenced to four years' imprisonment and the court made a recommendation for deportation under section 6 the Immigration Act 1971. In due course the Secretary of State signed a deportation order. That was on 3 March 1992.
Having regard to the length of his prison sentence he became eligible for parole at the beginning of March 1993, and though at first there was some doubt on...
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Dimitris Tsavdaris v Home Office
...that his detention had become unlawful by 1st July 2006. 62 In reaching this conclusion, I have applied the dictum of Laws J. in In re Mahmod (Wasfi Suleman) [1995] Imm AR 311, at p 314: "While, of course, Parliament is entitled to confer powers of administrative detention without trial, th......
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department v SM (Rwanda)
...Ex p Simms [2000] 2 AC 115, 131D-G (see further below). He quoted the following well-known observation of Laws J observed in In re Wasfi Suleman Mahmod [1995] Imm AR 311 (at page 314): “While, of course, Parliament is entitled to confer powers of administrative detention without trial, th......
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R (SK (Zimbabwe)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department
...sentence, succeeded before Woolf J although he had been detained for little more than four months. In In re Mahmod (Wasfi Suleman) [1995] Imm AR 311 the claimant, who had been sentenced to four years imprisonment was then detained for some ten months. Laws J as he then was said this at page......
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AYZ v The Home Office
...Court's decisions in R (I) v SSHD [2002] EWCA Civ 888 (citing the judgments of laws J (as he then was) in Re Wasfi Suleman Mahmod [1995] Imm AR 311 and Lord Browne-Wilkinson in Tan Te Lam v Tai A Chau Detention Centre [1997] AC 97) and R (Lumba) v SSHD [2012] 1 AC 245. As Lord Dyson said in......
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Divisional Court
...no evidence to suggest bad faith on the part of the Algerianauthorities. In contrast to Hardial Singh and Re Mahmod (Wasfi Suleman)[1995] Imm AR 311, there appeared to be a real possibility for earlyresolution following the provision of the DNA profile to the Algerianauthorities. It follo......