Harmondsworth immigration detention centre. Photo: Detention ActionLast month, my organisation Detention Action’s legal challenge to the Detained Fast Track asylum process came to an end. After almost three years of litigation, a dozen hearings, two Court of Appeal rulings and a good deal of angst, it came down to a single A4 side of paper from the Supreme Court.
Permission to appeal denied. The Lord Chancellor’s appeal raises no arguable point of law. We win.
If the pervading feeling was relief, it was because partly because much had already been celebrated. We celebrated that extraordinary day when the Minister finally suspended the operation of the Detained Fast Track altogether. No longer would people seeking asylum in the UK be taken straight to high security detention-centres and given impossible deadlines to make and evidence their case for protection.
