09 January 2009

New policy on judicial reviews that challenge removals

A new policy on handling legal challenges to us removing people from the United Kingdom (judicial review challenges) will come into effect on 30 January. This will help us establish a swift end-to-end process for concluding asylum cases and deporting foreign national prisoners.

This will affect the cases of people who make another application for judicial review (JR) within three months of a judge refusing permission on a previous JR application, particularly where the first claim has been found to be clearly without merit or where a case has been withdrawn or otherwise concluded.

Under our current policy, we automatically stop work on removing that person from the United Kingdom while the new application is going through the courts. From 30 January we will no longer automatically suspend removal, particularly where the first claim has been found to be clearly without merit.

It will only affect cases where the claimant has raised:

• the same or virtually identical grounds; or
• grounds that could reasonably have been raised previously at the judicial review.

In these circumstances we are unlikely to suspend removal on receipt of a judicial review challenge.

People affected by this policy will need to obtain an injunction to prevent removal taking place, and we will ensure they are told they need to do this.

The revised policy aims to deter claims that are designed simply to disrupt the removal process and to ensure that claimants do not benefit in any way by lodging a weak claim.