27 June 2025
By guest contributor Saira Turner
In U3 (AP) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] UKSC 19, the Supreme Court has unanimously dismissed an appeal against a decision taken by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (“SIAC”) relating to deprivation of citizenship and refusal of entry clearance on the basis of national security concerns.
24 June 2025
In Episode 222 of Law Pod UK, Marina Wheeler KC and Rosalind English of 1 Crown Office Row are joined by Shadow Attorney General Lord Wolfson of Tredegar to discuss the legal challenges facing David Wolfson KC in his new appointment to the commission tasked with reforming the European Court of Human Rights.
During our conversation Lord Wolfson addresses the political sensitivities involved in reforming the ECtHR, particularly where it comes to the balance between national sovereignty and international human rights obligations, a topic on which he has been in public disagreement with the current government’s Attorney General Lord Hermer KC. We explore the legal questions that predate and would arise from those reforms, including the implications for the rule of law and the long term relationship between the UK and Strasbourg.
Lord Wolfson emphasises the importance of careful legal analysis and the need for clear, principled leadership in this sensitive area, since he is now tasked with reviewing how to prevent the ECtHR from blocking government policies, especially on contentious issues like immigration and climate change mitigation. Above all, he stresses that the rule of law must be observed by asserting parliamentary sovereignty over Strasbourg and other decisions by international institutions.
23 June 2025
In the news
The EU’s diplomatic service has warned of “indications” that Israel’s activities in Gaza and the occupied West Bank are “in breach of [its] human rights obligations” to the Union under Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. The report, due to be presented on 23 June to the foreign ministers of Member States by Kaja Kallas, High Representative of the EU’s Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, is based on “facts verified by and assessments made by independent international institutions”. It follows an audit pushed forward last month by 17 Member States, led by the Netherlands. The Agreement, which came into force in 2000, provides for free trade arrangements between the two parties, currently worth over 42 billion euros a year in goods, and a further c. 35 billion euros in services: the EU is Israel’s top commercial partner. Article 2 of the Agreement states that “Relations between the Parties, as well as the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of the Agreement.” Suspending the Agreement would require the unanimous consent of the EU’s 27 Member States.
The UK Office for Students (OfS) has issued new “free speech” guidelines to universities in England, effectively prohibiting blanket bans on student protests, and putting substantial brakes on the penalisation of students and staff exercising lawful speech. The guidelines anticipate and purport to give clarity to the provisions of delayed Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, now revised and due to come into force this August. The OfS’s new “three step” approach requires universities to take “reasonably practical steps” to “secure free speech” which is “within the law” (= Steps 1 and 2): where this is not possible, it must run a proportionality assessment on any interferences to free speech, following Article 10(2) of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) (= Step 3). The National Union for Students has dismissed the guidance as “just more nonsense playing into the so-called ‘culture wars’”, with the new regulations failing to the prioritise “protecting and supporting marginalised students.”
In the courts
The Court of Appeal has held that an asylum applicant’s fears of being returned to a jurisdiction which was not a “safe third country” or “safe third State” only affected his rights to appeal if the application were deemed inadmissible: it was “immaterial” to the assessment of an application once admitted. In AAZA v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 705, a Yemeni national appealed against the Upper Tribunal’s decision to uphold the Home Secretary’s refusal of his asylum application. The appellant, who had lived in China since the age of one but did not have Chinese nationality, claimed that there had been an error of law in the Tribunal’s allowing his appeal on humanitarian protection grounds with regard to Yemen, but not on humanitarian protection and human rights grounds with regard to China. The appellant argued that, since China was not listed as a “safe third country” under Schedule 3 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004, the UK was in breach of its obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention, and in contravention of his rights under ECHR Article 3 (prohibition of torture), following the provisions concerning return to a “safe third State” under Part 4A of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. Bean LJ held that these statutory provisions did not apply to the instant case: “whether a state is a “safe third State” within this new provision only affects rights of appeal”, something not disputed here. The applicant’s risk of ill-treatment if returned to China therefore had to be decided on the basis of evidence relating to his own circumstances. Bean LJ found that the First Tier Tribunal “gave entirely adequate reasons for finding that the test was not satisfied” by the evidence of AAZA, who had spent virtually his whole life in China before coming to the UK as a student: “there was no error of law.” However, the Court held that the appellant might still apply to have his application reconsidered by the Home Secretary, if he could submit fresh evidence that he was at a risk of refoulement from China to Yemen.
18 June 2025
In ALR and others v Chancellor of the Exchequer [2025] EWHC 1467 (Admin), the High Court has dismissed a challenge against the government’s manifesto policy of adding VAT to private school fees. The claimants were a group of students, parents, and schools. Some of the students required specific schooling because of (inter alia) special educational needs and religious convictions; all claimants sought a declaration that the VAT addition was incompatible with the European Convention of Human Rights. Specifically, they argued that imposing VAT was incompatible with Article 2 Protocol 1 (right to education) and 14 (protection from discrimination).
This dismissal of the judicial review challenge represents a significant ruling on the interplay between fiscal policy, human rights law and the allocation of resources for education.
16 June 2025
In UK News
A modest rise in justice spending was announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Spending Review. The courts system will receive up to £450m extra a year by 2028-29, helping to increase Crown Court sitting days and implement the recommendations of the forthcoming Leveson review. The probation service will receive up to £700m extra funding by 2028-9. Funding will also be awarded to prison building and the Law Officers’ departments. The average real terms increase in Ministry of Justice funding is of 3.1%.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill returned to the House of Commons for debate on Friday 13 June. Among the amendments discussed was a prohibition on registered medical practitioners or other health practitioners raising assisted dying with a person under 18. Despite opposition by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, the Bill’s proposer, it was approved by a vote of 259 to 216. It was the first time Leadbeater had been defeated on the Bill in a Commons vote.
The government announced that rough sleeping will be decriminalised after more than 200 years. The Vagrancy Act 1824, introduced in response to increased homelessness after the Napoleonic Wars and Industrial Revolution, will be scrapped by spring 2026.
6 June 2025
This was an application for judicial review brought by an animal welfare charity challenging North East Lincolnshire Council’s decision to grant planning permission for the UK’s first full commercial scale onshore salmon farm proposed by AquaCultured Seafood Ltd. The farm, to be built in Cleethorpes, is designed to produce 5,000 tonnes of salmon per year.
The High Court had dismissed the application on paper in March 2025. However it was subsequently decided that Animal Equality’s challenge could proceed on the grounds that there was an arguable case that North East Lincolnshire Council’s planning officers had misdirected the Planning Committee by advising that animal welfare concerns could not be considered as material planning considerations under planning law. This potential misdirection raised a legal question about whether the approval of the salmon farm was lawful, warranting a full judicial review of the decision.
Arguments before the court
Animal Equality highlighted risks of welfare issues, such as the pain and suffering felt by animals kept in highly packed units, being eaten alive by sea lice; mass fish deaths including cannibalism and other problems such as high effluent levels in recirculating aquaculture systems. They referred to the deaths of 1.5 million fish at another onshore facility due to electricity supply interruptions. The Claimant did not seek to persuade the Court that the committee were required to take animal welfare concerns into account, rather that they should properly have been advised that it was open for them to do so if they wished to. They maintained that the Council’s planning committee members had been materially misled in relation to animal welfare concerns when the committee was advised that it could not take animal welfare concerns into account.
2 June 2025
In UK News
The Bar Standards Board (BSB) have dropped their plans to require barristers to “act in a way that advances equality, diversity and inclusion”. The proposed rewrite of Core Duty 8 would have placed barristers under a positive duty – something that had sparked widespread controversy about the BSB imposing its views of “social justice” on practitioners through “social engineering“. Notably, the rewrite was heavily criticised by former chair of the Bar Council who warned against the unintended detrimental consequences of “radical change”. Barbara Mills KC, current chair of the Bar Council has emphasised the continued commitment of the Bar Council to “equality, diversity and inclusion at the Bar”, but explained the concerns the Bar Council had about the positive duty “tak[ing] us backwards” due to the “lack [of] clarity needed for barristers to comply”. Although, director-general of the BSB, Mark Neale had promised that the proposed rewrite was “very genuine”, the BSB have now come out as saying that they will instead adopt a different strategy drawing on “all [their] regulatory tools” to advance equality of opportunity at the Bar.
This blog is run by 1 Crown Office Row barristers' chambers. Subscribe for free updates here. The blog's editorial team is:
Commissioning Editor:
Jasper Gold
Assistant Editor:
Allyna Ng
Editors:
Rosalind English
Angus McCullough KC
David Hart KC
Martin Downs
Jim Duffy
Jonathan Metzer
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