AYA & Ors, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

A statutory scheme for identifying victims of modern slavery must be robust and effective, though it need not be perfect. Where decisions are made rapidly and without a proper opportunity to answer adverse concerns, removing reconsideration for persons liable to removal to ECAT and European Convention on Human Rights signatory states unlawfully permits relevant evidence to be disregarded. It unlawfully fetters the Secretary of State’s power to reopen decisions, frustrates the protective purpose of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, and induces officials to act unlawfully. The Tameside duty of inquiry was nevertheless satisfied. For VTS leave, assistance must be available and accessible in the receiving country, but need not be equivalent, guaranteed or sufficient to complete recovery. Safe-third-country inadmissibility and clearly-unfounded certification require separate, structured assessments. Article 4 generally does not require the United Kingdom to identify or support trafficking occurring wholly abroad.

Five anonymised claimants challenged decisions made in the context of proposed removals to France under the Treaty. The common challenge concerned paragraph 14.216 of the Modern Slavery Guidance, which removed the right to request reconsideration of negative reasonable-grounds and conclusive-grounds decisions for persons intended to be removed to ECAT and ECHR signatory states.

The court also reviewed individual decisions on trafficking identification, VTS leave, asylum inadmissibility, and certification of human-rights claims as clearly unfounded. Some common issues had been addressed at an earlier interim-relief hearing, reported at [2026] EWHC 552 (Admin). The central questions were whether the amendment was lawful under the statutory scheme and common law, and whether the individual decisions could stand.

The common challenge to paragraph 14.216 succeeded.

1. Identification and reconsideration. The discretion under section 49 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 is bounded by the requirement for robust and effective arrangements for identifying trafficking victims. ECAT does not itself prescribe a reconsideration mechanism, but necessity depends on the safeguards in the domestic process. Here decisions were often made rapidly, following difficult interviews and before medical or other evidence became available. Removing reconsideration for the relevant cohort therefore institutionalised disregard of evidence capable of showing that a negative decision was wrong.
2. Fetter and public law. The Secretary of State retained an inherent or implied power to reopen decisions. Restricting its exercise to practical cases, threatened litigation or fundamental error, while excluding material new evidence, unlawfully fettered that discretion. The amendment also frustrated the protective purpose of the Act under the Padfield v Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food [1968] AC 997 principle and induced officials to act unlawfully under the principles in R (A) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] 1 WLR 3931.
3. Inquiry and territorial scope. The Tameside duty required reasonable inquiry, not perfect information. The Secretary of State made reasonable inquiries about support in France, and the remaining information gaps were not obviously material. The court observed that ECAT’s territorial scope was uncertain. Article 4 of the Convention generally did not require the United Kingdom to identify or support a person whose alleged trafficking occurred wholly abroad, subject to a real and immediate risk arising on removal.
4. Individual claims. VTS leave under section 65 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 required consideration of the individual’s need and whether assistance was available and accessible in France. AYA’s refusal was lawful. The two-stage safe-third-country test was lawfully applied in AYA’s and KAG’s cases. Certification required anxious scrutiny and a claim bound to fail on every legitimate view. EXR’s Ethiopia and Belarus decisions, HRE’s conclusive-grounds decision and certification, and KAG’s certification and inadmissibility decisions were lawful. GIP’s negative reasonable-grounds decisions were unlawful because the medical evidence supplied reasonable grounds at the initial filtering stage, but his certification decision was lawful.

Permission to proceed was granted. The court recorded that the unlawful policy made a real difference in EXR’s and KAG’s cases, but not in HRE’s or GIP’s.

This was a first-instance rolled-up judicial review. Some common issues had previously been considered at an interim-relief hearing resulting in [2026] EWHC 552 (Admin) . No appeal is stated in the judgment.