Afghan driver refused resettlement loses High Court challenge

An Afghan man and his family have lost their challenge to refusal of their application for resettlement under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy. The case is R (AFA & Ors) v Secretary of State for Home Department & Anor [2025] EWHC 2143 (Admin).

Before the Taliban took over, the claimant worked as a driver for companies that provided security and risk management services. This included GardaWorld where his duties included “driving foreign consultants from allied countries to specific locations”. His employers worked on two projects that were funded by the UK government.

The claimant applied under ARAP on the basis that the work he had done “offering support and assistance to allied forces and countries” had put he and his family at risk from the Taliban. His application was refused on the basis that he was not eligible because he had not “made a substantive and positive contribution towards the achievement of” the UK’s military or national security objectives in Afghanistan.

The claimant sought administrative review of the refusal and then judicial review. There was one ground of challenge: “that the SSD’s decision that the Claimant was not eligible under ARAP category 4 is wrong in law or is Wednesbury unreasonable”. Issues for the court to decide included “whether the SSD erred in his consideration of condition 2 by failing properly to assess whether the Claimant’s work as a driver made a “substantive and positive contribution toward the achievement of … UK’s national security objectives””.

The court said:

Mr De Mello was right to warn against lazy assumptions that the contribution of a support worker, such as a driver, cannot constitute a substantive and positive contribution to a national security objective. I agree that it is not the person’s status or job title which is decisive. But, in my judgment, given the wording of the policy, it is not the programme by which an applicant is employed that has to be shown to have made a substantive and positive contribution; it is the work of the individual applicant. It has to be shown that in the course of relevant employment, “the person”, the individual applicant, made a substantive and positive contribution to the UK Government’s national security objectives.

It concluded that there was nothing to suggest that the claimant as an individual had made a significant contribution to national security and his work was described as “routine and mundane”, even though taking place in dangerous conditions. The judicial review was dismissed.