England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions

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Cite as: [2008] EWHC 2295 (Admin)

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		Neutral Citation Number: [2008] EWHC 2295 (Admin)
		CO/7692/2008

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT

Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL

23rd September 2008

B e f o r e :

MR JUSTICE BLAKE
____________________

Between:

	THE QUEEN ON THE APPLICATION OF EBENEZER OLUSOLA AKANGBE	Claimant
	v
	SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT	Defendant

____________________

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____________________

The Applicant did not appear and was not represented
Mr Rory Dunlop (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared on behalf of the Defendant
____________________

HTML VERSION OF JUDGMENT
____________________

MR JUSTICE BLAKE: This is an application for permission to bring judicial review proceedings in respect of the claimant's detention in immigration detention.

It is unfortunate that, although the matter was stood over to today on directions given by the judge in August, the claimant, who is presently acting in person, has refused to attend and refused to leave his cell to come to this court. It is true that on 19th September he applied for an application for an adjournment on the basis that he had recently severed his connection with his solicitors, who were acting for him when this application was lodged, and wanted to find new solicitors. That will not be an easy task, as the claimant identifies, given where he is and the difficulties with finding representation and there is no reason to believe that any new solicitor is willing to act for him.

However, the claim that he seeks to have adjourned was drafted by counsel and was lodged on 1st August 2005. I have carefully examined that claim in the light of subsequent events and have considered whether there is any basis for the proceedings to be further adjourned in the event that there will be submissions that could be directed to the court which might have assisted the claimant in pursuit of that claim. I conclude there are not and therefore I propose to refuse the application for adjournment and to consider permission and I also propose to refuse the grant of permission.

I was concerned when the case was called on that Mr Dunlop, who appears for the defendant in the case, indicated that a letter had been sent, written yesterday, 22nd September, indicating that there would be no opposition to an application for an adjournment, but I cannot conclude that the claimant has been misled into thinking that there was an agreed application for an adjournment and it is still a matter for the court whether there are good reasons to adjourn this case and therefore I conclude that the absence of opposition does not prevent this court from considering the matter for itself.

Essentially, this is a case in which the claimant arrived here in 2005 as a visitor, overstayed, went to ground, acquired a false passport and was arrested in January 2008 for using that false instrument. He was prosecuted, pleaded guilty, sentenced to six months' imprisonment with a recommendation for deportation and was released from that sentence in April 2008 but maintained in immigration detention ever since. He made a late claim for asylum after those events and that claim for asylum was rejected by the Secretary of State in July. It went before an Asylum and Immigration Appeal Tribunal, who rejected the claim on 18th August 2008. I stress that date: that is some 17 days after the present application for judicial review was lodged. In their conclusions on the facts, the Tribunal rejected the proposition that the claimant had been tortured. They rejected his credibility and concluded that he was someone prepared to lie and use false documents to promote his interests from time to time.

With that unpromising brief narrative of the events, I turn to the point of issue. In July 2008, about a month before the adverse decision of the asylum and immigration tribunal, the claimant did produce a medical report noting various scars upon his body, one of which was considered to be particularly consistent with the claims of ill treatment that he was alleged he had endured in his native Nigeria. The claim form submits that, once evidence of torture had been produced, the policy of the Secretary of State was not to detain people and therefore once such evidence had been provided he should not have been detained. As at the date of the claim form, the asylum appeal had not been determined and therefore the relief sought was essentially release from detention pursuant to the policy.

In my judgment, there is no reasonable prospect of the remedy of release from detention being granted pursuant to this application for judicial review because in any event the appeal has now being disposed of, he has been held not to be a refugee, not to be someone at risk of torture and, indeed, as a material finding of fact in that assessment it has been held that he has not historically been a victim of torture and therefore, at the highest, the most generous interpretation of the defendant's policy could not now in my judgment lead to his release. The most that the claimant could now be complaining about would be his historic detention for the period of a month or less from the transmission of his medical report to the determination of his appeal.

If there are any merits in the submission that he was unlawfully detained in breach of policy in that period he could, of course, always sue for wrongful imprisonment pursuant to a private law action by writ if so advised. That would have no impact upon his present detention and treatment. I do not encourage that course since it seems to me there would be a number of obstacles, not least that the policy was never intended to be absolute and would always be subject to particular circumstances which, for reasons I have attempted to give in this judgment, may very well exist in this particular case. However, since there is no realistic possibility of the claimant obtaining relief, notwithstanding that he is not present and has sought an adjournment to change counsel, I have concluded that there is no basis to grant an application. I refuse the application for adjournment. I dismiss this application for permission.

MR DUNLOP: I am grateful, my Lord.