All Articles: mental health

The Home Office has conceded a judicial review and accepted that the ‘Detention Services Order 04/2020: Mental Vulnerability and Immigration Detention‘ was not operating effectively or as intended in ‘certain cases’, particularly in cases where there are concerns about a detained individual’s ability to make immigration related decisions. The concession...

19th December 2023
BY Jamie Bell

Here, we look at the practicalities involved in getting a good medico-legal report. We have previously explained what a medico-legal report is and that article should be read alongside this one. These reports can be a game changer in cases involving vulnerable clients, but in the current climate it is...

24th October 2023
BY Beth Mullan-Feroze

Expert reports are common in asylum and human rights cases. They usually address either the conditions in the applicant’s country of origin or their physical or mental health. The duties of an expert witness giving evidence in court are well established. Specific guidance for experts providing reports for cases in...

28th April 2022
BY Iain Halliday

Assisting migrants who lack mental capacity to instruct a lawyer, or whose capacity fluctuates, can pose challenges. Without having clear instructions on a person’s immigration history and what they would like to do, it can often be impossible to provide legal advice and representation. Law Society guidance is also clear...

8th July 2021
BY Brian Dikoff

A Palestinian refugee threatening to take his own life in a dispute over the age recorded on his residence permit has lost a judicial review at the Court of Appeal. The case is (WA (Palestinian Territories)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 12. Background The...

15th January 2021
BY CJ McKinney

Chucking people out of a country they were born in is hard. It usually takes something pretty dramatic or pretty terrible — or both, as in the case of Azerkane v The Netherlands (application no. 3138/16). The facts Mr Azerkane was born in the Netherlands to Moroccan parents. His parents...

9th June 2020
BY Bilaal Shabbir

How can a young man with Asperger syndrome and poor mental health, who has lived in the UK for the overwhelming majority of his life, be deported to Jamaica? The Voice newspaper reports on the case of Osime Brown, a 21-year-old man who the Home Office is trying to deport....

11th March 2020
BY Nath Gbikpi

The High Court has decided that rule 35(2) of the Detention Centre Rules is not unlawful, despite acknowledging the overwhelming evidence that it has failed to protect the welfare of detainees who are at risk of suicide. In R (IS (Bangladesh)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019]...

18th October 2019
BY Alex Schymyck

As we reach the end of Mental Health Awareness Week, it seems like a good time to reflect on the impact that the current immigration system can have on the mental health not only of migrants, but also their legal representatives. We regularly hear of people becoming depressed as a...

18th May 2018
BY Nath Gbikpi

The independent prison inspector has raised the alarm over the continued detention of migrants who the Home Office accepts have been tortured. A scathing inspection report also found “considerable failings” in safety and respect for detainees at the “prison-like” Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre near Heathrow. HM Chief Inspector of Prisons,...

13th March 2018
BY CJ McKinney

Should the Home Office read all of the supporting evidence sent in with an application? The High Court provided a predictable answer in the case of R (Gayle) v SSHD [2017] EWHC 3385 (Admin), which considered the tragic personal circumstances of the claimant, Marie Gayle, and whether the decision to...

16th January 2018
BY Nick Nason

In Secretary of State for the Home Department v KE (Nigeria) [2017] EWCA Civ 382, the Court of Appeal tackled the narrow, but important, issue as to whether a non-British citizen who is convicted and sentenced to a hospital order with restrictions under sections 37 and 41 of the Mental...

4th October 2017
BY nathgbikpi
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