Claim for asylum not made as soon as reasonably practicable on arrival - continuing refusal of secretary of state to relieve claimants of consequences of destitution - breach of asylum seekers' convention rights

R (S) v Secretary of State for the Home Department; R (D) v Same; R (T) v Same: QBD (Mr Justice Maurice Kay): 31 July 2003

After their arrival in the UK, the secretary of state refused to provide, or to arrange for, the provision of support to the claimant asylum seekers under section 55 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, on the basis that their claims had not been made as soon as reasonably practicable after their arrival.

The claimants sought judicial review of those decisions.

Stephen Knafler (instructed by Clore & Co) for S; Stephen Knafler (instructed by Hammersmith and Fulham Community Law Centre) for D and T; Shaheen Rahman (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the Secretary of State for the Home Department.

Held, granting judicial review, that in the case of D only, the decision that the claim for asylum was not made as soon as reasonably practicable after arrival in the UK under section 55(1) of the 2002 Act was flawed and needed to be quashed; that in those circumstances, there were ten identified ways in which treatment may have involved a breach of the right not to 'be subjected...to inhuman or degrading treatment' under article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights; and that, in all three cases, the continuing refusal of the secretary of state to relieve the claimants of the consequences of destitution amounted to a breach of their article 3 rights.