Secretary of State for the Home Department v GG

Positive/Neutral Judicial Consideration

 

Court

Queen’s Bench Division (Administrative Court)

 

Judgment Date

19 May 2016

 

Where Reported

[2016] EWHC 1193 (Admin)

[2016] 5 WLUK 418

Judgment

 

Subject

Human rights

 

Other related subjects

Civil procedure

 

Keywords

Control orders; Disclosure; Prevention of terrorism; Relocation; Restrictions; Right to fair trial; Right to liberty and security

 

Judge

Collins J

 

Counsel

For the applicant: Tim Eicke QC, Steven Gray.

For the respondent: Danny Friedman QC, Michelle Butler.

For Special Advocates: Angus McCullough QC, Shaheen Rahman.

 

Solicitor

For the applicant: Government Legal Department.

For the respondent: Gladstone.

 

Case Digest

Summary

A control order and its subsequent renewals imposed on an individual between 2006 and 2010 had been lawful where there had been sufficient material available to the Secretary of State for the Home Department to give rise to a reasonable suspicion that he had been engaged in terrorist-related activity and disclosure had been ECHR art.6 compliant. A requirement that the individual had to relocate to Cardiff had been unlawful as sufficient regard had not been paid to the effect on the children if they were uprooted from their family home.

 

Abstract

The court was required to consider the lawfulness of a control order imposed by the secretary of state in 2006 and revoked in 2010. The subject of the order (G) appealed against its renewals and against an obligation contained in the order that he should relocate to Cardiff.

 

G had been arrested in 2005 for terrorism offences. No evidence justifying prosecution was found and he was released, but a control order was made against him. The order was quashed in 2006 because it contained obligations which were considered to breach ECHR art.5. The secretary of state appealed to the House of Lords which ultimately upheld the decision to quash, but in the meantime the secretary of state renewed the order against G. In February 2009, the Administrative Court, relying on the Court of Appeal’s decision in Secretary of State for the Home Department v F [2008] EWCA Civ 1148, [2009] 2 W.L.R. 423, [2008] 10 WLUK 434 regarding the correct approach to ensuring that a hearing was art.6 compliant, held that the disclosure of the material relied on against G was, as the law then stood, adequate. The control order was subsequently renewed again, with a requirement that G relocate to Cardiff. However, in 2010 the House of Lords in Secretary of State for the Home Department v F [2009] UKHL 28, [2010] 2 A.C. 269, [2009] 6 WLUK 220 held that F had been wrongly decided. It determined that art.6 required further disclosure over that which the Court of Appeal had considered to be adequate. Following that decision, G appealed against the Administrative Court’s decision of February 2009. In 2012, it was ordered by consent that the appeal should be allowed and the proceedings remitted to the Administrative Court for redetermination in accordance with the principles as set out by the House of Lords in F. The control order, by that time, had been revoked.

 

 

Held

Judgment accordingly.

 

(1) Fairness and art.6 dictated that an individual against whom a control order was made had to be given sufficient information about the allegations against him to enable him to give effective instructions to a special advocate, F followed. Article 6 compliant disclosure had now been given and thus there was no unlawfulness in the making of the order nor in any renewals of it, N v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ 869, Times, September 1, 2010, [2010] 7 WLUK 817 and Secretary of State for the Home Department v F [2008] EWCA Civ 1148 considered. There had been sufficient material available to the secretary of state to give rise to a reasonable suspicion that G had been engaged in terrorist-related activity so that a control order was justified. There was material which justified the conclusion that he sought to persuade others to favour his extremist views and to take action in accordance with them and that such action could involve terrorist-related activity. The secretary of state had not acted unlawfully in forming the view that the control order needed to be renewed in 2009. Although the Iraq war had ended in 2008, removing to an extent what had motivated G’s activities, his continuing involvement with extremists in 2009 and his continued expression of extremist views justified the ongoing concerns and reasonable suspicion. Further, the court was not persuaded that the restrictions amounted to a breach of art.5. The imposition of the control order and its renewals had been lawful (see paras 8, 18, 26-27, 33-34, 36 of judgment). Secretary of State for the Home Department v F [2009] UKHL 28 followed,

 

(2) With regard to G’s appeal against his relocation to Cardiff, it had been clear that G’s wife did not want to leave her home in Derby because of the harm which would be done to the children by uprooting them and because she had employment there. Sufficient regard had not been paid to the effect on the children or to the real difficulties expressed by his wife if she was to be uprooted from Derby. Further, by mid-2009, it had to have been obvious that the control order had a limited life. It was also significant that G had offered much stricter controls if he were allowed to return to live in Derby. In all the circumstances, the modification that he had to live in Cardiff had to be quashed (paras 40, 42-44).