In The Press

Ahmed Aydeed, Director of Public Law at Duncan Lewis’ Birmingham office, writes for The Law Society on immigration detention and its impact on the thousands of men, women and children that are indeterminately detained every year for administrative convenience. He writes about the abuse in detention centres, the flawed system of detention and the draconian actions taken by the Home Secretary. He condemns the completely inhumane ‘Detained Fast-Track’ (DFT) system, which ran from 2005 until 2014. This saw the detention of those who were considered to have weak asylum claims, whilst their claim was considered in an accelerated time frame – often leaving them without the chance to seek legal advice before their claim was settled. Significantly, Ahmed points out that many of his clients have suffered re-traumatisation in detention, in spite of the ordeals that have forced them from their own country to seek international protection. Ahmed writes: “In the case of Zafar, where the Home Secretary was yet again found to be acting unlawfully and ordered to pay substantial damages for the unlawful detention of my client, I recall Mrs Justice Andrews telling counsel for the Home Secretary that he was attempting to “defend the indefensible” and that, however he phrased the legal submissions, it “remained indefensible”. I am pleased the court recognised the injustice in this case but migrants continue to be imprisoned in the UK.”