February 19, 2025

MA -v- Secretary of State for the Home Department (anonymity order)

Administrative Court High Court King's Bench Division Anonymity Order

Claim number: AC-2024-LON-003547

In the High Court of Justice
King’s Bench Division
Administrative Court

19 February 2025

Before:

Mr CMG Ockelton sitting as a Judge of the High Court

Between:

The King on the application of
MA

-v-

Secretary of State for the Home Department

Order

Following consideration of the documents filed by the Claimant and the Defendant’s Acknowledgment of Service

ORDER BY MR C M G OCKELTON sitting as a judge of the High Court1. Anonymity:
(a) Pursuant to CPR 39.2(4) and/or the Court’s inherent jurisdiction and/or s. 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998:
i. the Claimant’s name is to be withheld from the public and must not be disclosed in any proceedings in public; and
ii. the Claimant is to be referred to orally and in writing as MA.
(b) Pursuant to s. 11 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, there must be no publication of the identity of the Claimant or of any matter likely to lead to the identification of the Claimant in any report of, or otherwise in connection with, these proceedings.
(c) Pursuant to CPR 5.4C(4):
i. the parties must within 7 days file a redacted copy of any statement of case filed, omitting the name, address and any other information likely to lead to the identification of the Claimant;
ii. if any statement of case subsequently filed includes information likely to lead to the identification of the Claimant, a redacted copy omitting that information must be filed at the same time;
iii. unless the Court grants permission under CPR 5.4C(6), no non-party many obtain a copy of any unredacted statement of case.
(d) Any person wishing to vary or discharge this Order must make an application, served on each party.

2. Permission to apply for judicial review: Permission is granted on all grounds.

3. Case Management Directions:
(a) The Defendant must, within 35 days of the date of service of this Order, file and serve (i) Detailed Grounds for contesting the claim or supporting it on additional grounds and (ii) any written evidence to be relied on.
(b) The Defendant may comply with sub-paragraph (a)(i) above by filing and serving a document which states that its Summary Grounds are to stand as the Detailed Grounds required by CPR 54.14.
(c) Any application by the Claimant to serve evidence in reply must be filed and served, together with a copy of that evidence, within 21 days of the date on which the Defendant serves evidence pursuant to (a) above.
(d) The parties must agree the contents of the hearing bundle. An electronic version of the bundle must be prepared and lodged, in accordance with the Administrative Court Judicial Review Guide Chapter 21 and the Guidance on the Administrative Court website, not less than 28 days before the date of the substantive hearing. The parties must, if requested by the Court, lodge 2 hard copy versions of the hearing bundle.
(e) The Claimant must file and serve a Skeleton Argument (maximum 25 pages), complying with CPR 54 PD para. 15 and the Administrative Court Judicial Review Guide paras 20.1 to 20.3, not less than 21 days before the date of the substantive hearing.
(f) The Defendant must file and serve a Skeleton Argument (maximum 25 pages), complying with CPR 54 PD para. 15 and the Administrative Court Judicial Review Guide paras 20.1 to 20.3, not less than 14 days before the date of the substantive hearing.
(g) The parties must agree the contents of a bundle containing the authorities to be referred to at the hearing. An electronic version of the bundle must be prepared in accordance with the Guidance on the Administrative Court website. The parties must, if requested by the Court, prepare a hard-copy version of the authorities bundle. The electronic version of the bundle and if requested, the hard copy version of the bundle, must be lodged with the Court not less than 7 days before the date of the substantive hearing.
(h) The time estimate for the substantive hearing is 2 hours. If either party considers that this time estimate should be varied, they must inform the court as soon as possible.

Observations and reasons

(1) I have granted permission on all grounds, although it is not clear that ground 2 adds anything to the underlying assertion that the reasonable grounds decision was infected by public law error. It does appear that, for whatever reason, the claimant’s claim met a number of difficulties, but that would not of itself be fatal to the decision as made. In my judgment the grounds are arguable for the following reasons.
(2) First, although the assessment of evidence and its weight is a matter for the defendant, and although the guidance tells decision-makers to look for support or corroboration in various forms, it cannot be that the search for corroboration replaces the duty to listen to what the claimant says and assess whether it is (or may be) true. The decision under challenge arguably fails to do that, which is probably at least in part the same as saying that it arguably failed to take into account all the material, including the explanations for discrepancies, given initially or at the reconsideration stage.
(3) Secondly, the claimant was more than arguably deprived of a proper reconsideration. Because of an apparent miscalculation by the defendant, the request was said to have been made out of time. That was corrected when the PAP letter was being responded to. But the defendant’s summary grounds fail to appreciate that the consideration then given, and recorded in the response, in essence was the reconsideration, and was, pretty clearly, undertaken on the basis of the wrong standard of proof.