CA-2025-002338 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1264

This is the judgment of the Court after a rolled-up hearing on 23 September 2025 of an application for permission to appeal and, if permission was granted, of the appeal by the Secretary of State against an order made by Sheldon J (“the Judge”) on the evening of Tuesday 16 September 2025. We will refer to the Respondent as “CTK”. In brief, CTK claimed that he was the victim of trafficking. That claim was referred to the National Referral Mechanism (“the NRM”). The Competent Authority under the NRM (“the Competent Authority”) decided that there were no reasonable grounds for believing that CTK was a victim of trafficking. We will refer to that decision as “the Competent Authority’s decision”. In accordance with the statutory guidance then in force, and which applied to the Competent Authority in deciding CTK’s case, the Competent Authority’s decision letter said that CTK could apply for a reconsideration of that decision within 30 days. The Secretary of State confirmed to the Judge during the hearing that, if CTK were removed to France, the Competent Authority would not reconsider the decision and would not receive further evidence from CTK. In those circumstances, the Judge ordered the Secretary of State to refrain from removing CTK to France pending resolution of the application for interim relief. He indicated in the course of his judgment that CTK’s solicitors were to use their best endeavours to provide representations to the Competent Authority for it to reconsider the trafficking claim within 14 days.

On this appeal the Secretary of State was represented by Ms Grange KC, Mr Brown KC, Ms Reeves and Ms Hart. CTK was represented by Ms Naik KC, Ms Braganza KC, Mr Lee, Mr Bandegani, Ms Fitzsimons and Ms Rea. We are grateful to all counsel for their written submissions and Ms Grange for her oral submissions. It was not necessary for us to hear from Ms Naik.

We announced at the end of the hearing on 23 September that we had decided to refuse permission to appeal on all four grounds of appeal, and that we would give full reasons for that decision in writing. Arnold LJ summarised briefly why permission to appeal was refused. He said that the Judge made no error of law or error of principle, and that none of the grounds of appeal was arguable with a realistic prospect of success. He added that the key issue concerned ground 1 of the grounds of appeal, and whether the Judge was correct to hold that there was a serious issue to be tried as to whether or not the Secretary of State acted unlawfully, in domestic law, in proposing to remove CTK the following day when her own statutory guidance provided at the relevant time for an opportunity for CTK to request, within 30 days of the relevant decision, reconsideration of that decision, and when the Competent Authority’s decision itself expressly gave CTK the same opportunity. This judgment explains those reasons in more detail. It also explains why, for reasons which were to some extent clarified at the hearing, there is no other compelling reason for giving permission to appeal in this case.