The King on the application of Ebou Jasseh v Secretary of State for the Home Department

Hearing date: 8 January 2025

Approved Judgment

This judgment was handed down remotely at 10am on 16 January 2025 by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and by release to the National Archives.

Introduction

This judgment deals with a procedural issue which is of general importance in immigration cases where an application for interim relief to stay the claimant's removal from the United Kingdom is made or expected. The issue concerns communications from the Government Legal Department (acting for the Home Secretary) to the Administrative Court about planned removals.

Background

The claimant is a national of The Gambia. He entered the United Kingdom in 2004 or 2005. He was convicted in 2016 of rape and sentenced to 6 years' imprisonment. A deportation order was made. Between October and December 2024, he filed five claims for judicial review, in each case with the aim of challenging or postponing his removal. All these claims failed at the permission stage.

Directions were given for the claimant's removal on a flight to The Gambia on 9 January 2025. The claimant was detained at Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre, near Heathrow Airport. He filed a sixth claim on 3 January, again in the Upper Tribunal, and applied for interim relief to stay his removal. He was unrepresented and drafted the claim and application himself.

The claim was transferred to the Administrative Court because it included a challenge to the Home Secretary's decision to reject the claimant's case that he was a victim of trafficking and the Upper Tribunal declined jurisdiction on the ground this fell outside the scope of the Lord Chief Justice's Direction. The application for interim relief was referred to me. On 6 January, I gave directions permitting the Home Secretary to respond to the application by 12 noon on 7 January and the claimant to indicate by 4pm on the same day whether the application was still maintained. If so, there was to be a remote hearing on 8 January.

Although the claimant was at one point represented, the solicitors assisting him came off the record. He indicated that wished to proceed with the hearing, which took place remotely on the morning and afternoon of 8 January. I heard submissions from the claimant and from Julie Anderson for the Home Secretary. I gave an oral judgment refusing interim relief, but also indicated that I would give a separate written judgment on the procedural issue, which I drew to the parties' attention at the start of the hearing.

The claimant was not in fact removed on 9 January for reasons outside the Secretary of State's control. The removal has been rescheduled for 16 January. On 10 January, I received a letter from GLD about the procedural issue, parts of which I set out here.

The procedural issue

The procedural issue arises from an email which was sent to the Administrative Court Office by a Government Legal Department lawyer, on the evening 7 January 2025 at 21:21. The terms of the email were as follows:

“Dear Administrative Court,

Strictly confidential – Gambia Charter

We act on instructions from the SSHD, the Defendant in a number of judicial review claims previously issued by Mr Ebou Jasseh. Mr Jasseh is scheduled to be removed via charter flight on 9 January 2025 at approximately 07:45am. GLD and counsel are instructed by the SSHD to consider and potentially defend any applications for interim relief or judicial review which are filed in relation to Mr Jasseh's removal. We can also assist with any other challenges to the charter flight.

The GLD lawyers on call are myself and [name given] (copied). We have instructed Julie Anderson as Counsel. Our contact details are below:

…

In case we can assist the Court, GLD and counsel are available to provide any information or responses, the ‘Immediates’ or on-call judges may require prior to making any interim relief orders. We are all on call 8 – 9 January 2025, including partially out of hours. If you cannot contact us, please contact OSCU in the usual manner.

Mr Jasseh has issued six judicial review claims since October 2024, several of which did not present all relevant information before the Upper Tribunal. As a result, UTJ Hirst requested that we provide the Court with a bundle outlining the litigation history.

Mr Jasseh has already issued one claim on 3 January 2025 …, which was transferred to the Administrative Court the same day. However, we anticipate that more claims may follow. To assist the Court with any future claims, we will provide four bundles and a chronology, which will be sent across multiple emails due to size. Please advise if there is another manner you would prefer these to be provided.

Please note that we have already provided these documents on a separate email chain for considering in the present judicial review claim…

We would be grateful if you can acknowledge receipt of this email and confirm that the relevant judges and their clerks are aware of the above.

Attached: Chronology, Bundle 1, and Bundle 3

Kind regards…”

This email was passed to me on the morning of 8 January 2024. At the start of the hearing, I questioned why this email, headed “Strictly confidential”, had not been copied to the claimant. Julie Anderson for the Home Secretary told me on instructions that there was a published policy not to disclose the time of charter flights for removals, because doing so could enable targeted disruption, which in turn could endanger staff as well as those subject to removal.

In their letter of 10 January 2025, GLD explain that the email was headed “Strictly confidential” because it contained the departure time of the charter flight. Reference was made to the Home Office's policy Enforced removals: notice periods (version 2.0), published on 29 April 2024. That contains the following at p. 30:

“In general persons subject to enforced removal should be provided with as much information about their departure as is practicable. This includes, where known:

• departure time

• flight number

• departure airport

• departure airport terminal

• arrival time

• arrival airport

• arrival airport terminal

However, in certain circumstances it may be appropriate to provide only the date of departure, destination and any transit stops.

…

Charters

For charter flights, which can often be the subject of targeted disruption, you must only include the date of departure, the destination and names of any transit stops.

See the section on charter flights for further information.”

On p. 56, there is the following:

“To protect the safety of those on board a chartered aircraft to particular destinations it may be necessary, for security reasons, to not provide additional information such as departure time, airport name and terminal details. In these cases, all those being removed by that flight will be only given the destination, date of departure and any transit stops in the notice of departure details (NDD).”

GLD explain that, whenever a charter flight is planned and litigation is anticipated, GLD sends an email to the Upper Tribunal and Administrative Court Offices. The email includes the time of departure of the flight and the contact details of the GLD lawyers and counsel instructed to deal with applications in relation to that flight. An example of such an email is attached to GLD's letter. It was sent to the Administrative Court Office on 14 October 2024 and says this:

“We would be grateful if you could please pass on the below to the ‘Immediates’ and ‘on-call judges’ for 16–17 October 2024.

GLD and counsel are...