Awuku (No 2) & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department

Renewed and ex parte applications to the Administrative Court must be properly arguable and must comply with the professional obligations of solicitors and counsel. Those obligations include identifying and explaining material matters that were omitted from earlier proceedings. Applications must also be scrutinised diligently by a qualified lawyer. A caseworker’s preparation of an application without such scrutiny does not discharge the solicitor’s responsibility. The solicitor or counsel remains accountable to the court for compliance.

The Divisional Court considered three immigration-related applications involving alleged failures to comply with the rules of the court and professional obligations. In Bashir, the matter was adjourned for relisting because counsel was absent. In T and T, an application for interim relief had relied on a superseded family links policy. In Awuku, an urgent judicial review application raised matters that had not been advanced in earlier proceedings and had not been scrutinised by a qualified lawyer. The court addressed the professional standards governing such applications and the appropriate procedural response.

1. Solicitors and counsel making or renewing an application on an ex parte basis must satisfy themselves that the claim is properly arguable. The obligation is particularly important in renewed applications and applications made out of hours. The court’s forms requiring confirmation of compliance reflect an existing professional obligation rather than creating a new one.

2. An application to the court on an ex parte basis requires diligent and careful scrutiny by a qualified lawyer. Preparation by a caseworker, including an experienced caseworker who is a trainee solicitor, is insufficient without review by a fully qualified lawyer.

3. The responsible solicitor or counsel is accountable to the court for compliance. Where an application raises matters not previously advanced, the application should explain why those matters were omitted, particularly where there has been ample time to provide the explanation. Hurry or administrative error is not, on the facts of the Awuku application, an adequate excuse.

4. The court accepted the apology in the Awuku and T and T matters and took no further action in either. The Bashir matter was to be relisted as soon as convenient so that it could be heard in the presence of counsel.

The judgment itself describes earlier proceedings in the related immigration matters, including decisions by Haddon-Cave J, Cox J and Swift J. No appeal from a lower-court judgment is identified.