Y, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

A challenge to an unlawful trafficking decision is not academic merely because the claimant no longer requires immediate assistance. The duty to complete victim identification is distinct from the duty to provide assistance. A positive conclusive decision may therefore be required even where assistance is unnecessary. The identification process also serves the Convention’s wider purposes of preventing trafficking, supporting investigation and prosecution, and facilitating international co-operation. Any investigation must remain proportionate to the circumstances. A later decision which confirms and replaces an earlier decision may be quashed, while the earlier decision itself cannot be quashed because it no longer stands.

The claimant challenged decisions concerning whether she was a victim of human trafficking. In an earlier judgment, the court held that the decision of 14 December 2009 was unlawful in two respects: it gave inadequate reasons concerning the period spent in an unknown foreign country, and it was irrational to conclude that the claimant had not been trafficked while held in the United Kingdom.

The remaining issue was whether those findings had practical value because the claimant no longer required Convention assistance. The court also considered the effect of R (on the application of E) v Secretary of State for the Home Department and the revised Asylum Process Guidance.

1. Practical value of the challenge. The claimant’s entitlement to have the later decision quashed was not academic. Identification as a victim has significance beyond immediate assistance in the United Kingdom, including the implications of return and the Convention’s wider objectives.
2. Identification and assistance. Articles 10(1) and 10(2) impose a duty to complete the victim-identification process where there are reasonable grounds to believe that a person has been trafficked. That duty is separate from the provision of assistance under Article 12. A conclusive decision may therefore be positive as to victim status even where the claimant does not qualify for, or require, Convention assistance.
3. Scope of investigation. The identification process involves such investigation as the authority considers necessary. A pragmatic acceptance of an account may be appropriate where further inquiries are unlikely to produce useful evidence. Further investigation is justified and required where the victim can provide information capable of assisting the identification and prosecution of traffickers. The court recognised that these observations arose in considering relief and were not part of the grounds of the substantive decision.
4. Relief. The decision of 14 December 2009 confirmed and replaced the earlier decision of 31 July 2009. The earlier decision therefore no longer stood and could not be quashed. The later decision was quashed. Mandatory relief requiring recognition of the claimant as a victim was refused.
5. The claimant succeeded to some extent. There was no order for costs, save for detailed Community Legal Service assessment of her publicly funded costs.

The judgment concerned remaining issues following the court’s earlier substantive judgment in the same proceedings. No appellate history is stated in the judgment.