News

Court of Appeal decision in terrorist deportation appeals
29 July 2010

In W (Algeria) and others v Home Secretary, Robin Tam QC led for the Home Secretary when successfully defending a challenge to the lawfulness of the "closed evidence" procedure in the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, in which sensitive evidence is not disclosed to the individual, and adduced to the court only in closed sessions from which the individual is excluded but in which his interests are represented by a special advocate. In dismissing the appeals, the Court of Appeal rejected the appellants' complaint that they had a right to an irreducible minimum of disclosure which had not been respected by the legislation; Parliament had in fact made clear provision for the system, as recognised by the House of Lords in previous cases. The court also rejected a second complaint about the appellants' inability to adduce sensitive evidence themselves with a guarantee of non-disclosure to the authorities of their home countries.