The High Court has allowed a claim for judicial review by a prisoner detained in a ‘Separation Centre’.
‘Separation Centres’ are small group isolation units (of 6-7 prisoners) for the management of prisoners with risks associated with extremism and terrorism. Once selected, prisoners can spend years within a Centre. The High Court found that the decision to select a prisoner for a Separation Centre “is highly significant: the conditions of detention in an SC are materially different to those on mainstream location” (§59) and noted research suggesting that long term small group isolation can produce “serious and adverse psychological effects similar to solitary confinement” (§§52-58).
This case is the first time the operation of Separation Centres had been considered in a substantive judicial review claim.
The Claimant, Mr Denny De Silva, was selected for the Separation Centre in June 2023. The High Court found that there were a number of legal errors in the decision to select the Claimant for the Separation Centre:
- The Separation Centre Management Committee failed to consider at all the Claimant’s detailed factual representations (§111).
- The Separation Centre Management Committee was required to at least to attempt, so far as it can on the information available to it or which it could reasonably obtain, to resolve the disputed factual issues which formed the basis of the Claimant’s selection (§§154-167). The fact that the Committee failed to do so in the Claimant’s case was unlawful (§§168-186).
- The decision to select the Claimant for the Separation Centre was procedurally unfair, because the Separation Centre Management Committee failed to hold an oral hearing (§§204-227).
- The reasons given for the Claimant’s selection to the Separation Centre were legally inadequate, in that they did not explain why the Claimant’s representations had not been accepted (§§229-230).
- Inappropriate comments made by one member of the Separation Centre Management Committee that the Claimant had “turned into a psychopath” and was “not willing to acknowledge [that] he had a personality disorder” (when the Claimant had never been assessed for, much less diagnosed with, psychopathy or a personality disorder) unlawfully affected the decision of the Committee (§§259-270).
- The selection of the Claimant for the Separation Centre interfered with his right to privacy, as guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (§§277-285). By reason of the various legal errors which the High Court had found that interference was not “in accordance with the law” for the purposes of Article 8(2) (§§286-289).
Dan Squires KC and Tim James-Matthews acted for the Claimant, instructed by Birnberg Peirce Solicitors.
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