News

Supreme Court gives judgment in false imprisonment case
23 March 2011

Robin Tam QC with Michael Beloff QC leading Charles Bourne and Jeremy Johnson represented the Home Secretary in the Supreme Court in which two men challenged the legality of their immigration detention

A majority of the panel of nine Supreme Court Justices found that the men had been falsely imprisoned. The two Appellants had been detained under an unpublished policy which was in place between April 2006 and the middle of 2008 which amounted to a 'near blanket ban' on the release of foreign national prisoners ('FNPs') who had ended their sentences of imprisonment. This policy was being operated at a time when the Home Office had a different published policy. A decision maker had to follow published policy unless there was good reason for not doing so; the decision maker could not rely on an unpublished policy to render its actions lawful.

It was further held that it was not unlawful for there to be a policy which amounted to a presumption in favour of detaining FNPs, providing that policy did not breach the principles in Hardial Singh.  

The Supreme Court also held that the pair were entitled to nominal damages only because had the published policy been applied it was inevitable that they would have been detained in any event. The Court rejected the Appellants' claim for vindicatory damages and did not consider that this was a case where exemplary damages were appropriate.

The question of whether the Hardial Singh principles were breached in respect of the Appellant Lumba was remitted for consideration by a Hugh Court Judge.  

A summary of the judgment can be found on Lawtel and a full transcript on Bailii: [2011] UKSC 12