Damages for visa revocation and maladministration by the Home Office

The recent TOIEC litigation underlines just how serious the ramifications of visa revocation can be on individuals and their families. The same is true where applications for leave to enter or remain are subject to severe delay and or maladministration.  Procedural protection for applicants has been considered in some detail recently, including by the Court of Appeal, in Ahsan and Balajigari.  But what about redress for poor decision making / maladministration in the past, and no doubt the future?  

This webinar will look at potential remedies through damages, via the law of negligence and the Human Rights Act 1998.  It will include analysis of recent  judgments from the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Appeal, and the question of forum.

Speakers 

Stephanie Harrison QC, Joint Head of Garden Court Chambers (Year of Call: 1991, Year of Silk: 2013)
Stephanie is highly regarded as a leading practitioner in the field of immigration law, with 20 years’ experience in complex immigration and asylum claims. Her unique blend of expertise in statutory appeals, public and civil law is evident in her legacy of test case litigation, which has developed jurisprudence in the area of immigration and asylum relating to human rights, unlawful detention, national security detention, and deportation appeals. 

Stephanie is a leading practitioner in judicial review challenges to the lawfulness of policy and practice in the treatment and administrative detention of vulnerable adults, families and children in mainstream and fast-track detention.

Greg Ó Ceallaigh, Barrister, Garden Court Chambers (Year of Call: 2006)
Greg Ó Ceallaigh is a barrister specialising in human rights, asylum and immigration and public law. He is highly experienced in immigration detention work and has represented detainees in detention claims at every level from the Administrative Court to the Court of Appeal, as well as in civil actions for false imprisonment both in the County Court and the Queen’s Bench Division. He frequently appears pro bono on behalf of Bail for Immigration Detainee. 

Greg has contributed to several of the leading practitioners’ texts on the subject of immigration detention and is a LexisNexis Panel expert on false imprisonment. He is ranked in the Chambers UK Bar Guide 2020 and the Legal 500 2020 for immigration.

David Sellwood, Barrister, Garden Court Chambers (Year of Call: 2012)
David Sellwood is a public law practitioner, specialising in the areas of immigration, asylum, nationality, and human rights. He advises and represents claimants at all stages of proceedings, in first instance and appellate courts and tribunals.  He was junior counsel in the key authority on the right to private life in an immigration context, under Article 8 ECHR: Rhuppiah v SSHD [2018] UKSC 58. 

He is a contributor to three textbooks on immigration law: Macdonald’s Immigration Law and Practice (9th ed); Jackson’s Immigration Law and Practice (5th ed, forthcoming); and The Law and Practice of Expulsion and Exclusion from the United Kingdom (1st ed). David is ranked in the 2020 Chambers and Partners UK Bar Guide for Immigration, which described him as "A very bright barrister who works incredibly hard and will certainly do well." Prior to the Bar, David spent over eight years in the human rights sector. He worked as the Human Rights Adviser in the Consular Directorate of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; and as an immigration caseworker at the Refugee Legal Centre (as it was then), and in private practice.