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

There is no universal period within which an asylum claim by an unaccompanied child must be decided. The reasonable time required is case-specific. Delay does not establish systemic unlawfulness merely because it is substantial or widespread, particularly where child-protection safeguards add complexity and the Secretary of State is taking rational steps to improve performance.

The section 55 duty requires regard to children’s welfare and best interests as a primary consideration, but it does not require the court to impose a judicially prescribed timetable or resource allocation. A system may lawfully balance prompt decision-making, safeguarding requirements and available resources. Individual claimants may still obtain public-law relief where their own delay is unjustified.

The claimant, an unaccompanied Sudanese child transferred to the United Kingdom under Operation Purnia, claimed asylum on 23 October 2016. His claim was decided on 9 November 2018, after a substantial delay. He challenged both the asylum decision-making system for unaccompanied children and the delay in his individual case.

The systemic grounds alleged failures to determine claims promptly, give proper priority to children, comply with the section 55 duty under the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, and avoid unlawful discrimination under articles 8 and 14 ECHR. The individual challenge concerned common-law delay, section 55, EU asylum directives and article 8. The central issues were whether the system was inherently unlawful and whether the Operation Purnia hold was an unlawful cause of delay.

1. Systemic challenge dismissed. The evidence established very substantial delays and serious effects on children’s welfare, but did not establish that the system itself created an unacceptable risk of procedural unfairness or failed to give priority to unaccompanied children.
2. The court adopted the systemic-challenge principles summarised in R (Woolcock) v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and others: the focus is the system and any inherent risk of procedural unfairness, not merely multiple individual operational failures. The distinction remains one the court must draw, notwithstanding the difficulty of doing so.
3. There is no six-month benchmark for asylum decisions. Paragraph 333A of the Immigration Rules and article 23 of the Procedures Directive require decisions as soon as possible, without prejudice to adequate examination, but the six-month point triggers information duties rather than a mandatory decision deadline.
4. The section 55 duty and the best-interests principle were reflected in the arrangements. The additional safeguards for children, including specialist training, social-worker input, age assessment, representation at interview and family tracing, could legitimately increase the time required. The court could not prescribe a universal timetable or direct the Government’s allocation of resources.
5. The article 14 challenge failed. Although children and adults may require different treatment, the arrangements substantially modified the asylum process for children and therefore did not unlawfully treat materially different cases alike.
6. The individual delay claim also failed. The relevant duties were to have regard to section 55 and to decide within a reasonable time. The Operation Purnia hold had a rational basis: it preserved the possibility of a more favourable status for affected young people and enabled resources to be managed during system-wide pressure. The reasoning in R (S) v Secretary of State for the Home Department supported that approach.
7. The article 8 claim failed. Applying Mambakasa, as approved in Anufrijeva v Southwark LBC, the delay did not demonstrate a lack of respect for private or family life. The claim was dismissed.