Mark Henderson

Mark Henderson is a public lawyer specialising in asylum, human rights, immigration, social welfare, and EU law. His work covers a wide range of judicial review and appeals up to the House of Lords. He also handles false imprisonment claims against the Home Office, homelessness appeals in the County Court, and professional negligence claims. He has advised various solicitors on public funding and regulatory matters and has represented solicitors at hearings of the Legal Services Commission's Costs Committee and Contract Review Body. He is identified by Chambers & Partners and the Legal 500 as a leading junior in immigration. Chambers and Partners 2007 commented: Henderson was described as "a master of tactics and strategy."

He is the author of the Best Practice Guide to Asylum and Human Rights Appeals, ILPA/RLG/EIN, 2003 (supplied to all practitioners in the field by ILPA and the Immigration Services Commissioner, with a new edition due in 2008). He is co-author of Blackstone's Guide to the Asylum and Immigration Act 2004, OUP, 2004 and Convener of the Editorial Committee of the ILPA Directory of Experts on the EIN, launched in January 2005.

In 2007, he won one of the few declarations of incompatibility in relation to primary legislation to have been granted under the Human Rights Act and the first to be granted in asylum law, the Administrative Court holding that a key plank of the Government's legislative scheme violated Article 3 (Nasseri). A test case challenging, under Article 14 and the principle of equality, the exclusion of unaccompanied minors from the Home Office's family amnesty is presently pending in the House of Lords (Rudi). He is also acting in a test case on behalf of former Gurkhas denied settlement in the UK. His caseload includes a series of cases about the safety of Zimbabwe which have resulted in removals to Zimbabwe being halted since 2005 and upon which (according to the Home Secretary) thousands of claimants depend.

Recent judicial review cases have included claims arising out of the first enforced removals to Iraq since the 1980s. These involved the constitutional right of access to the court for detainees facing removal and resulted in the Home Secretary conceding unlawful detention and substantial damages for false imprisonment. He has also challenged the compatibility with EU law of the UK's worker registration scheme for accession nationals in the context of homelessness appeal proceedings.

He is the Access to Justice Convener of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA), and a member of its Executive Committee since 2000. He is involved in lobbying on legislation, represents ILPA on various bodies including the statutory Advisory Panel on Country Information, and stakeholders groups of the Administrative Court and AIT, and represented ILPA in negotiations with the Home Office and the Civil Procedure Rules Committee on the new practice direction on judicial review challenges to removal.

He has also acted as a consultant to the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner, and an assessor for the Bar Council's Immigration Accreditation Panel. He has conducted training on immigration and social welfare issues for numerous organisations including ILPA, Justice, the Electronic Immigration Network, the LSC's ACT Project, and the Immigration Advisory Service.

Cases include:

• R (Nasseri) v SSHD (2008) 1 All ER 411 (2007) HRLR 36 (2007) UKHRR 1008 Times, August 3, 2007(first declaration of incompatibility in asylum law to effect that deeming third countries to be safe for asylum removals violated Article 3)
• R (Rudi) v SSHD [2007] EWCA Civ 1326 (challenge to the exclusion of unaccompanied minors and young adults from the Home Office's family amnesty, permission to appeal now granted by the House of Lords)
• A (No.2) [2006] 2 AC 221 [2005] UKHL 71 (acted for a coalition of NGOs led by Amnesty International in the leading case on the admissibility of evidence obtained by torture in legal proceedings);
• AA and LK v SSHD [2007] 2 All ER 160 [2006] EWCA Civ 401(the interpretation of the non-refoulement provision in the Refugee Convention and removal to Zimbabwe);
• AA (No. 2) [2007] EWCA Civ 149 (the threshold for Article 3 ill-treatment and removal to Zimbabwe)
• Bensaid v UK 33 EHRR 10 [2001] INLR 325 (leading Strasbourg authority on 'extra-territorial' application of article 8 and challenges to expulsion on medical/ psychological grounds);
• Adan and Aitsegeur [2001] 2 AC 477 (the only occasion upon which the House of Lords held that European third countries were unsafe);
• Khadir [2006] 1 AC 207 [2005] UKHL 39 (the limits on the Home Secretary's powers of detention and whether asylum seekers who cannot be removed must be granted leave to remain);
• Turgut [2001] 1 All ER 719 (standard of review in article 3 cases and treatment of fresh evidence on judicial review - settled after the House of Lords granted permission to appeal);
• Al-Skeini [2005] 2 WLR 1401 (extent to which articles 2 and 3 govern the conduct of British armed forces in Iraq);
• Kurtolli [2004] INLR 198 (circumstances in which risk of suicide will render expulsion inconsistent with article 3);
• CA [2004] INLR 453 (limits of jurisdiction on an appeal on a point of law and application of N where a child is at risk of HIV);
• Madadi [2004] Imm AR 530 (whether article 6 applies to asylum upgrade appeals);
• Husain [2002] ACD 10 (whether withdrawal of asylum support violates article 3, and applicability of article 6 to asylum support appeals);
• Q No. 2 [2003] EWHC 2507 (Admin) (procedures to be followed when bringing urgent asylum support challenges);
• Szoma [2003] All ER (D) 230 (Feb) (challenge to local authority's policy of making payments to asylum seekers in arrears);
• Dhima [2002] INLR 243 (test for sufficiency of protection for article 3 cases);
• Kinuthia [2002] INLR 133 (recourse to remedies following ill-treatment does not constitute adequate protection);
• B [1998] INLR 315 (entitlement to damages for false imprisonment where administrative detention unlawful on public law grounds);
• Revenko [2001] QB 601 (in what circumstances statelessness gives rise to refugee status);
• Senkoy [2001] Imm AR 399 [2001] INLR 555 (definition of fresh claim for asylum);
• Demirkaya [1999] Imm AR 498 [1999] INLR 441 (meaning of persecution and correct approach to past persecution when assessing future risk);
• Cakabay [1999] Imm AR 176 [1998] INLR 623 (whether the existence of a fresh claim for asylum is precedent fact and the jurisdiction of adjudicators);
• M [1999] Imm AR 548 (expulsion of person with AIDS);
• Bostanci [1999] Imm AR 411 (challenging exclusion of legal interpreter from asylum interview); and
• Sarbjit Singh [1999] Imm AR 445 (definition of torture).

Important appeals before the asylum and immigration tribunals have included the Zimbabwean litigation where exceptionally, he cross-examined senior Home Office civil servants, and the appeals of the Afghan victims of the Stansted hijacking.

last updated February 2008

Year of Call

1994

Education

MA (Oxon)

Email Address

m.henderson@doughtystreet.co.uk

Specialist Teams

Mark Henderson is a member of the following specialist law teams:

• Housing and Social Welfare
• Human Rights
• Immigration
• International Law Group
• Public and Administrative Law