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

Immigration and Asylum Chamber (Upper Tribunal)Anonymity Order

Case number: JR-2024-LDS-000060

In the Upper Tribunal
(Immigration and Asylum Chamber)
Judicial Review

29 May 2026

Before:

Upper Tribunal Judge Blundell

Between:

The King on the application of
MZMR

-v-

Secretary of State for the Home Department

NOTIFICATION of the Judge’s decision (UT rule 30(1))

Following consideration of the documents lodged by the applicant and the Acknowledgement of Service filed by the respondent

Order by Upper Tribunal Judge Blundell:

Pursuant to Rule 14(1) of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, there shall be an order protecting the Applicant’s anonymity. The Applicant’s name shall be anonymised in these proceedings as MZMR. There shall be no publication of the Applicant’s name or any details likely to lead to his identity.

Permission is refused

Reasons

  1. The applicant is entitled to anonymity as a confirmed victim of trafficking.
  2. The delay in this application being placed before a judge has not been explained to me. The claim was lodged eighteen months ago and the respondent filed her Acknowledgement of Service in January 2025. The case has only been allocated to me for consideration today. I will bring the delay to the attention of the Principal Resident Judge.
  3. The applicant challenges the respondent’s decision not to grant him Discretionary Leave (“DL”) as a Victim of Modern Slavery. The applicant is a young man who was the victim of labour exploitation in the United Kingdom. There have been two previous refusals of DL, both of which were challenged successfully by way of judicial review in this tribunal. The decision under challenge therefore represents the third consideration of the applicant’s eligibility for leave.
  4. The applicant’s entitlement to leave was considered under the policy identified at [78] of the Statement of Facts and Grounds (“SFG”): Discretionary leave considerations for victims of modern slavery (v 5.0), published on 10 December 2021. The footnote to that part of the grounds quite properly observes that it has been replaced but it refers to the transitional provision to the new policy, which is in the following terms: All new considerations made after commencement of Appendix: Temporary Permission to Stay for Victims of Human Trafficking or Slavery (VTS) in the Immigration Rules on 30 January 2023 will be made under this policy, and any reconsideration of those decisions. Reconsiderations of decisions made under the previous policy of Discretionary Leave for Victims of Modern Slavery will still be reconsidered under that policy.
  5. The decision maker and the parties have proceeded on the basis that the second sentence applies to this case, and that what was undertaken was a “reconsideration”. For my part, given the terms of the consent order which was sealed on 6 June 2024, I would have thought that the decision was a new decision to which the provisions of Appendix Temporary Permission to Stay for Victims of Human Trafficking or Slavery applied. By HC 719, those Rules came into force without transitional provisions on 30 January 2023, and the intention was that the relevant provisions of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the new Rules and the new policy should apply thereafter. But no point on that is taken, and I shall proceed to consider the application that the old DL policy continued to apply.
  6. The applicant contends that the respondent erred in considering whether he should be granted leave because there is a “significant and real risk in light of objective evidence that the person may be re-trafficked or become a victim of modern slavery again”. This ground is not arguable. Whilst the respondent focused on the risk from the applicant’s former traffickers, her overall conclusion was that there was “no credible suspicion of a real and immediate threat that your client will be re-trafficked in or from the UK.” As the respondent observes in the SGD, there was no evidential basis for reaching the contrary conclusion on the circumstances which then obtained; the applicant’s asylum appeal was pending and he was in suitable accommodation since the grant of bail from the FtT. This ground also fails to engage with the gravamen of the respondent’s reasoning, which was that DL was not necessary to ameliorate a risk of future trafficking. As the respondent made clear, she did not consider the applicant to be at risk of re-trafficking in the UK but, more importantly, she noted that the applicant’s exploitation had occurred in this country, and she concluded that he would not be at risk of re-trafficking in Iraq. That process of reasoning was fully in accordance with the terms of the policy and is not called into question by anything said in the grounds.
  7. The submissions which relate to the respondent’s consideration of the medical evidence are also unarguable. It was open to the applicant’s solicitors to submit additional evidence at any point between the sealing of the consent order (06.06.24) and the making of the new decision (28.08.24), or to seek additional time in which to do so. No such further evidence was submitted, and what was presented to the respondent was a medico-legal report which was more than two years old [AB/327] [AB/365] and a personal circumstances form [AB/380] [AB/382] which was of comparable vintage and which made clear that the applicant was taking no medication and receiving no counselling. The respondent also concluded for unassailable reasons that appropriate treatment would be available in Iraq. It was certainly rational, in those circumstances, for the respondent to conclude that DL was not necessary to protect and assist the applicant’s recovery.
    Costs
  8. The applicant will pay the respondent’s costs of £770, subject to any representations in writing to be received within 9 days of the date on which this order is sent.
  9. The respondent is entitled to her costs in principle and the sum sought is reasonable and proportionate to the complexity of the case.