The UK Government relocated 55 Tamil asylum seekers and refugees from Diego Garcia to the UK. Most of these individuals have been stranded on Diego Garcia for over three years.
Diego Garcia is the largest island of the Chagos Archipelago, which currently forms part of the British Indian Ocean Territory (“BIOT”). The UK Government recently agreed to return the territory to Mauritius, after the International Court of Justice ruled that the continuing British occupation is illegal. Part of Diego Garcia is host to a joint UK-US military facility.
In October 2021, a group of Tamil asylum seekers bound for Canada on a fishing boat foundered in the Indian Ocean. They were escorted by the Royal Navy to Diego Garcia, where they claimed asylum. The Commissioner for the BIOT (a UK civil servant who governs the territory) accepted that the asylum seekers could not be returned to Sri Lanka, as this would have breached the international law principle of non-refoulement.
For three years, the asylum seekers were confined to a camp the size of a small cricket field, which the UNHCR described as “arbitrary detention” in conditions that “fail to provide the necessary standards of privacy, safety and dignity”. The asylum seekers include 16 children.
Chris Buttler KC and Jack Boswell represented many of the asylum seekers in their challenge to the UK Government’s initial refusal to relocate them to the UK.
The UK Government’s decision to concede that challenge follows extensive litigation in the BIOT, in which Matrix barristers have represented the asylum seekers.
Chris Buttler KC and Zoe McCallum represented the Claimants in the case that established the asylum seekers’ right to legal aid in the territory, instructed by Duncan Lewis Solicitors.
Chris Buttler KC represented the Claimants in the case that led to the withdrawal of the procedure for processing protection claims in the territory and the withdrawal of all negative protection decisions, instructed by Duncan Lewis Solicitors.
Chris Buttler KC and Jack Boswell represented the Claimants in the case that established the Commissioner’s statutory child protection duties under the Children Act 1989, instructed by Duncan Lewis Solicitors. They also represent the parents of warded children in related child protection proceedings.
Chris Buttler KC and Jack Boswell represent the Claimants in a challenge to the asylum seekers’ inadequate accommodation on Diego Garcia, instructed by Duncan Lewis Solicitors.
Chris Buttler KC and Jack Boswell represent the Claimants in a private law claim for damages against the Commissioner and G4S, who run security at the camp on Diego Garcia, instructed by Duncan Lewis Solicitors.
Chris Buttler KC and Jack Boswell represent the Claimants in judicial review challenges to the BIOT Police’s failure to investigate serious sexual offences against one of the asylum seekers, and the Commissioner’s failure to introduce a code of practice for victims of crime, instructed by Duncan Lewis Solicitors.
Chris Buttler KC, Helen Law and Jack Boswell represented the Claimants in a claim for false imprisonment and habeas corpus, which was heard on Diego Garcia in September 2024, instructed by Duncan Lewis Solicitors and Wilsons Solicitors.
Chris Buttler KC and Jack Boswell continue to represent the asylum seekers who have been brought to the UK, in their judicial review of the terms of their permission to enter and stay in the UK.