Gedi, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

A statutory power to grant immigration bail, read with the power to detain pending deportation, may authorise onerous conditions including a curfew. Such a condition may be imposed where it is rationally connected with securing the person’s appearance, or as a restriction as to residence. Electronic monitoring permits monitoring of presence or absence, but does not itself create a power to require presence at specified times. Where bail conditions continue after the proceedings supporting them have ended, threats intended to keep a person at home may constitute false imprisonment.

The claimant challenged curfew and electronic-tagging conditions imposed during deportation proceedings under the Immigration Act 1971 and the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc) Act 2004.

The first deportation proceedings ended on 18 August 2014. The Secretary of State accepted that the conditions lacked legal foundation between then and 9 December 2014, when a fresh deportation decision was made. The issues were whether there was power to impose a curfew, whether the First-tier Tribunal’s order required continued tagging, and whether enforcement during the intervening period amounted to false imprisonment.

1. Curfew power. The challenge to the curfew in periods 1, 2 and 4 failed. Paragraph 22(2) of Schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971, applied in deportation cases by Schedule 3, confers a broad power to impose bail conditions likely to result in appearance at the required time and place. A condition making absconding more difficult, including a residence condition or curfew, falls within that power.
2. Schedule 3 paragraph 2(5) separately permits the Secretary of State to notify a person liable to detention, but not detained, of restrictions as to residence. A night-time curfew associated with residence is such a restriction. The statutory context, including the power to detain, justifies onerous conditions which extend liberty by avoiding detention.
3. Section 36 of the 2004 Act authorises cooperation with electronic monitoring. It does not itself require presence at an address during specified periods. Any such requirement must arise from the bail or residence-restriction power.
4. The First-tier Tribunal’s order required cooperation with tagging once arrangements were made. The two-day provision dealt with release pending installation and did not extinguish the tagging condition if installation was delayed. The immigration officer therefore did not err in continuing tagging.
5. Between 18 August and 9 December 2014 there was no power to continue the conditions. Warning letters threatening imprisonment if the claimant left home intentionally constrained his freedom of movement and constituted false imprisonment. Damages and the consequential order were reserved.

This was a first-instance judicial review. The judgment records earlier First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal decisions concerning the deportation proceedings, but those decisions were not under appeal in this claim.