Permission refused in newly published Afghan data leak decision

A decision from 26 July 2024 refusing permission for judicial review in a case involving the Afghan data breach has just been made public following the lifting of the Afghan superinjunction. At the same time as this decision, permission was granted on other grounds in an open judgment, with the substantive judicial review dismissed in June 2025. This decision is R (QP1 & Anor) v Secretary of State for the Home Department & Anor (Open Judgment) [2025] EWHC 2504 (Admin).

The decision under challenge here was the Defence Secretary’s decision of 29 April 2024 to refuse to offer the claimants relocation assistance based on the data breach because neither of them were deemed to fall within the highest risk category.

The first ground was that it was irrational to first consider whether QP1 was a high profile individual before proceeding to determine whether he fell into the highest risk category. The court dismissed this ground, stating that the government had applied a rational policy for prioritisation that had been endorsed as lawful in CX1 and MP1 v SSHD [2024] EWHC 892 (Admin) (our write up is here).

In the alternative, in ground two it was argued that when all relevant circumstances were taken into account, it was irrational not to treat QP1 as a high profile individual. The court also dismissed this ground, saying that:

QP1 is plainly is not such a person. I refer also in this regard to the CLOSED witness statement of Laurence Thackwray of Defence Afghanistan Relocation and Resettlement at [15]. The incorrect perception that QP1 is a “spy” does not, for the reasons given by Mr Thackwray, place him at equivalent risk, nor does being of the Shia religion and Hazara heritage place him within that category. I consider, adopting the language at the end of [58] in CX1, QP1 could not on any view be considered in a high profile category, either as an individual, or by focussing on what he says was his role.

Presumably there are still more of these previously closed decisions to come in these Afghan data leak cases.