HA (Iraq) and deportation appeals: reasons to be cheerful

This seminar will consider the recent case of HA (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWCA Civ 1176, which considers the Supreme Court decision in KO (Nigeria), in which Sonali Naik QC and Helen Foot acted.  HA (Iraq) establishes a properly child-focused approach to the “unduly harsh” test in deportation appeals and represents a departure from previous authorities which suggested that if the effect of deportation on children was seen as no more than what would “ordinarily” or “necessarily” be expected, that could never be sufficient. The speakers will consider how the principles in HA (Iraq) can assist practitioners who represent appellants in deportation appeals. Louise Hooper of the Garden Court Chambers Immigration Team will chair the webinar. 
 

Recording

Speakers 

Sonali Naik QC, Barrister, Garden Court Chambers (Year of Call: 1991) (Year of Silk: 2018)
Sonali Naik QC is a senior public law and immigration practitioner with over 28 years’ experience who specialises in public law cases and in all aspects of immigration, asylum and nationality law. Sonali is ranked for immigration in Chambers UK 2020 and has a significant Higher Courts practice. She conducts almost exclusively leading work at all levels: the Court of Appeal, the Administrative Court and in the Upper Tribunal in statutory appeals and judicial reviews. She has very substantial immigration and asylum experience in her High Court and appellate court practice, acting in various country guidance asylum cases, most recently in AS(Afghanistan) in the Court of Appeal, the latest leading case on internal relocation. Sonali has an extensive judicial review practice in the areas of Article 8 ECHR certification, nationality, challenges to Home Office policy, trafficking and unlawful detention.

Sonali is Chair of Liberty and a trustee of Freedom From Torture and the Immigrant’s Aid Trust (charitable arm of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants), a member of the JUSTICE Council and she was appointed to the JUSTICE Working Group on Reform of Immigration and Asylum system. She won Lawyer of the Year at the Diversity Legal Awards 2018. She won Highly Commended for Outstanding Contribution to Diversity & Inclusion at the Chambers Bar Awards 2019. She was a finalist for Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year in 2016 and was featured as The Times’ Lawyer of the Week in January 2018.

Helen Foot, Barrister, Garden Court Chambers (Year of Call: 2008)
Helen is a barrister specialising in immigration, public law, human rights and nationality law. She is ranked in Chambers and Partners and the Legal 500 for immigration. Helen is an experienced advocate in the First-tier and Upper Tribunal and the Administrative Court. She has appeared in the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, where she acted as junior counsel for the appellants in KO (Nigeria) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] UKSC 53 and R(Hysaj and others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] UKSC 82. She specializes in complex protection claims on behalf of victims of trafficking, LGBTI refugees and those fleeing gender-specific persecution. Many of her cases involve children’s rights.

Helen’s judicial review practice comprises challenges to immigration detention, removal and deportation, certification of protection claims and decisions under the National Referral Mechanism for identifying victims of trafficking and modern slavery. Helen also acts in civil claims against public authorities in the immigration context, including claims in false imprisonment and claims for damages under the Human Rights Act 1998.

Zehrah Hasan, Barrister, Garden Court Chambers (Year of Call: 2016)
Zehrah became a Garden Court Chambers tenant in October 2020 and is building a practice in public, human rights, immigration and asylum law – with a particular interest in representing survivors of gender-based violence, trafficking and exploitation. Zehrah has previously worked at a number of non-profit organisations, including Liberty, Southall Black Sisters and the London Black Women’s Project. She is currently the Vice Chair of the Human Rights’ Lawyers Association. She has in-depth knowledge of legal protections for migrant survivors of domestic abuse, and owing to this she gave oral evidence in Parliament as an expert witness to the Joint Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill. She has also worked on policy and legislative reform surrounding abortion rights, immigration detention and LGBTQIA+ equality. 

Louise Hooper, Barrister, Garden Court Chambers (Year of Call: 1997) (Chair)
Louise Hooper is an established public law, human rights and migration lawyer. Her practice over the last 20 years has involved a focus on human rights, equality and dignity and is described in Chambers UK 2021 (Immigration) as "an excellent refugee and immigration barrister with a real passion for the work."

Louise has worked extensively with the Council of Europe as an international expert. This work has involved designing and developing offline and online training on the Istanbul Convention on Combatting Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, conducting baseline country evaluations of compliance with the Istanbul Convention and, most recently writing the guide to ‘Gender based asylum claims and non-refoulement: Articles 60 and 61 of the Istanbul Convention’. She is the appointed international expert to the Drafting committee on Migrant Women of the Gender Equality Commission. 

She co-authored the ICJ’s Practitioner Guide to Refugee Status Claims Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (2016) with Livio Zilli and Butterworths’ Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery: Law and Practice (for criminal practitioners) (1st Edition). She is a contributor and reader for Legal Action Group’s Migrant Support Handbook (forthcoming) and is a regular contributor to MacDonald’s Immigration Law and Practice, previously writing chapters on human rights, deportation, family migration and trafficking, currently working on the citizenship chapter for the 10th edition forthcoming in 2020.