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

The court’s inherent jurisdiction enables it to regulate proceedings and address serious professional misconduct by lawyers. A legal practitioner’s paramount duty is to the court. Before issuing proceedings, practitioners must make genuine efforts to obtain the relevant history and documents, verify instructions, and present a candid account of evidential limitations.

Urgent immigration proceedings must not be used to delay removal, mislead the court, or evade the Upper Tribunal’s jurisdiction. Where full enquiries are genuinely impossible, the limitations must be disclosed. Repeated or serious failures may justify referral to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, including on a first occasion.

Three immigration judicial review matters were referred to the Administrative Court because of concerns about the conduct of the solicitors and advocates involved. The proceedings included applications said to concern detention, removal, or habeas corpus, but the court found serious deficiencies in the preparation and presentation of the cases.

The concerns included failure to obtain earlier files, misleading or incomplete evidence, failure to serve the Secretary of State, inadequate supervision of junior staff, and the use of proceedings to avoid the Upper Tribunal. The central issues were the scope of the court’s inherent jurisdiction and the professional duties owed by lawyers in urgent immigration litigation.

1. Jurisdiction and professional duty. The Administrative Court has an inherent jurisdiction to regulate its own procedure and to require lawyers conducting proceedings to meet proper professional standards. The jurisdiction described in R (Hamid) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] EWHC 3070 (Admin) applies to those dealing with clients in proceedings. A lawyer’s duty to the client is subject to the paramount duty owed to the court.
2. Duty of enquiry and candour. A solicitor or advocate taking over a long-running immigration matter must make genuine efforts to obtain the relevant documents and history from the client, former representatives, and appropriate public bodies. Instructions, particularly about legal consequences such as whether an appeal suspends removal, cannot simply be accepted without checking. If time genuinely prevents full enquiries, the court must be told precisely what is missing and why. Presenting incomplete or inaccurate instructions as true is unacceptable.
3. Abuse of jurisdiction. A claim framed as one concerning detention, when its real purpose is to challenge removal, may be an abuse of process if brought in the High Court to avoid the Upper Tribunal. The court applied the reasoning in Ashraf v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2013] EWHC 4028 (Admin). Proceedings must not be issued merely to delay removal or consume court resources.
4. Responsibility and sanctions. Firms instructing external advocates must provide them with accurate and sufficiently complete information. Advocates must prepare documents only on information they know has been verified. Failures of supervision, service, disclosure, and pleading may justify referral to the SRA. The court referred all three matters to the SRA for investigation.
5. Future procedure. A response to a Show Cause letter should be given by a responsible person in a signed witness statement, with a full, candid response and relevant documents. The court may refer a matter to the SRA without a prior Divisional Court hearing and may do so on the first occasion of substandard conduct. The SRA remains independent and is not bound by the court’s views.