Raza is a barrister specialising in public law, with an emphasis on immigration and human rights. Raza was appointed silk on 26th February 2010. Previously in 2007, Raza was awarded Human Rights and Public Law Junior of the Year by Chambers Bar Awards. This year he was nominated as Human Rights Silk of the Year.
In the two years since its creation in October 2009, Raza has appeared as advocate in the Supreme Court on eight occasions. He successfully appeared in the nine-member Court decision in Lumba (March 2011), where the Supreme Court reversed a line of Court of Appeal authority and affirmed the orthodox approach to the tort of false imprisonment in the context of an unlawful exercise of public law detention powers. The Supreme Court also strengthened the Hardial Singh protections against protracted immigration detention. He also successfully appeared in Shepherd Kambadzi (May 2011), where the Supreme Court reversed a decision of the Court of Appeal and held that detention in breach of a policy requirement to conduct reviews meant that the tort was complete. He also successfully appeared in FA (Iraq) (May 2011), concerning the EU principle of equivalence in relation to appellate remedies provided against refusals of subsidiary protection, where the Supreme Court decided to make a reference to the Court of Justice. Subsequently the Home Office conceded the case and amended primary legislation.
Raza also successfully appeared as advocate both in the last case to be heard by the House of Lords (BA Nigeria, July 2009), concerning fresh claims to asylum, and in the first case heard by the Supreme Court (AKM and Ors, October 2009), concerning the vires of subordinate legislation implementing UN Sanctions. The House of Lords considered his submissions in BA (Nigeria) to be “excellent”, “attractive” and “enticing”. Raza successfully appeared as advocate in the Supreme Court in HJ Iran (July 2010, refugee claims by gay applicants), where the Supreme Court reversed a line of Court of Appeal authority and held that “discretion” was no answer to a refuge claim.
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights gave judgment in two of Raza’s cases in July 2011: Al-Skeini, a landmark judgment on the reach of extra-territorial jurisdiction under Art 1, and Al-Jeddah, a case concerning the law of attribution and the relationship between UNSCRs contemplating internment and Art 5.
In 2010, Raza was instructed in two cases before the European Court of Human Rights: Al-Saadoon (breach of interim measures and exposure to death penalty), and Othman (expulsion to Art 6 breach). His important Court of Appeal cases in 2010 included Pankina (PBS and immigration rules) and Abdi 2 (appeals and the Hardial Singh principles).
Raza’s pending cases include Saaedi (Court of Justice) on behalf of the UNHCR concerning the Dublin Regulation and the right to asylum (judgment 21 December 2011), and RT (Zimbabwe) (hearing June 2012) in the Supreme Court (HJ Iran applied to political opinion).
Over the last seven years, Raza has been instructed in 27 cases in the House of Lords or Supreme Court, including the Belmarsh case (2004) concerning the indefinite internment of foreign terrorist suspects, and the subsequent A (No.2) case (2005) concerning the admissibility of evidence derived from torture.
Raza was instructed by the NGOs JUSTICE and Liberty in Limbuela (2005) and in Ullah (2004), in which the House or Lords respectively declared the denial of basic subsistence to asylum seekers incompatible with human rights, and held that the application of the ECHR in immigration cases was not restricted to Article 3 (prohibition on torture etc). Raza appeared in the House of Lords in Huang (2007) and Chikwamba (2008), which concerned the meaning and content of the proportionality test under Article 8 (family life), and in JJ and Others (2007) and AN (2009), which concerned the ‘control order’ legislation enacted in the aftermath of the Belmarsh ruling.
Raza appeared before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in A and Ors (internment, 2009), and was instructed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to intervene in the Grand Chamber in Saadi v. UK (2007), in which the UNHCR challenged the UK’s system of detaining asylum seekers for the purposes of administrative convenience alone.
Important previous cases in the Court of Appeal include QD (Iraq) (Art 15 QD); F Mongolia (judicial review ouster); JM Liberia (human rights justiciability); Nadarajah 3 (legitimate expectation); Rashid (change in policy); D (false imprisonment); Nadarajah 2 (transparency of policy); and E (error of fact).
Raza is the co-author with Nicholas Blake QC (now Blake J) of Immigration, Asylum and Human Rights (OUP, 2003); second edition pending.