Finnian is frequently instructed in judicial review matters, with a particular focus on immigration and community care. He acts in urgent and complex proceedings as sole counsel and as a led junior, and has appeared at all levels up to the Court of Appeal. 

Recent work includes: 

• Acting in the Court of Appeal for Judge Kate Thomas in her challenge against the Judicial Appointments Commission’s refusal to share or provide a gist of adverse comments used against her in rejecting her application for a judicial role (led by Tony Vaughan), see here.

• Acting for BSO, a Palestinian teenager, in a linked case challenging the Foreign Office’s refusal to provide diplomatic support to assist his evacuation from Gaza, and challenging the Home Office’s refusal to grant him a visa. Appeared in the Administrative Court before the SSHD and FCDO withdrew their decisions (led by Charlotte Kilroy KC and Michelle Knorr), see here.

• Acting for RM and others, a Palestinian family seeking to join their daughter/sibling in the UK, in a successful challenge to the Home Office’s refusal of applications for entry clearance because they were unable to give biometrics in Gaza (led by Charlotte Kilroy KC and Michelle Knorr), see here.

• Acting for ASN, a Palestinian woman, in her successful judicial review challenge to the Home Office’s failure to predetermine her family reunion application, and the ongoing linked claim against the Foreign Office regarding adding her to their Gaza evacuation list (led by Sonali Naik KC). 

• Working with Greenpeace UK on judicial review proceedings challenging the grants of consent for the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields, see here.  

• Securing urgent interim relief for s.4 Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 accommodation on behalf of a highly vulnerable failed asylum seeker who had recently been detained under s.2 Mental Health Act 1983, see here.  

• Securing Indefinite Leave to Remain as a rectification of historic injustice for a refugee client whose claim was wrongly refused in 2008 due to reliance on a Sprakab report (and now acting in the consequent damages claim in the County Court after a successful claim for judicial review). 

• Acting in a judicial review challenge concerning a disputed age assessment of a Sudanese claimant who has been denied Part III Children Act 1989 support (claim ongoing, permission granted). 

• Regularly acting in age assessment matters, from bringing urgent interim relief applications to representing putative children (and former relevant children) at fact-finding hearings.

• Regularly advising on and acting in judicial review proceedings on behalf of victims of trafficking, including in challenges to negative reasonable and conclusive grounds decisions and for provision of support under the MSVCC. 

• Regularly advising on and acting in judicial review proceedings in relation to immigration detention, including complex matters involving victims of trafficking and foreign national offenders.

• Working alongside other leading counsel on judicial review challenges to the use of detention centres, including the Manston House and Bibby Stockholm cases.

• Assisting with a judicial review challenging the government’s application of the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy.

Finnian also significant experience in advising on and bringing damages claims arising from public law unlawfulness. Recent work includes:  

• Representing numerous clients in relation to their claims for damages arising from detention at Manston House. 

• Acting in a County Court claim for breaches of Article 8 ECHR after a successful judicial review of the Home Office’s failure to rectify an historic injustice after refusing an asylum claim on the basis of a Sprakab report. 

• Acting in various other claims for false imprisonment and breaches of the Human Rights Act arising out of unlawful immigration detention. 

Employment Tribunal litigation

Finnian has experience across the full spectrum of employment and discrimination law. He is regularly instructed to conduct multi-day final hearings in tribunals across the UK, and as well as in closed and open preliminary hearings. He also has a busy advisory practice.

Recent work includes:

• Appearing unled in the EAT in a complex matter concerning international and territorial jurisdiction, in relation to a claim brought by an international correspondent against CNN (full EAT hearing will take place in Spring 2025, at which Finnian will be led by Paras Gorasia), see here.  

• Successfully securing a full 90-day protective award on behalf of over 700 Unite the Union workers made redundant in the printing industry, see here.

• Persuading a Tribunal that Hackney Council had directly discriminated against a claimant on the grounds of disability after a five-day hearing. Also succeeded in claims for failure to make reasonable adjustments, unfair dismissal, and discrimination arising from disability, securing an award for £98,307.98, see here.

• Persuading a Tribunal that the Secretary of State for Justice had failed to make reasonable adjustments in relation to an Autistic employee after a three-day hearing.  

• Successfully arguing a Section 104A Employment Rights Act national minimum wage-related automatic unfair dismissal claim after a multi-day hearing.

• Representing a group of over 20 forensic medical examiners in an eight-day employee and worker status preliminary hearing against the Metropolitan Police (led by David Stephenson and Louise Mankau, judgment pending).

• Appearing in the Employment Appeal Tribunal in a race harassment claim (led by Paras Gorasia).

Collective labour law

Before coming to the bar, Finnian worked at various trade unions, including United Voices of the World. He brings that experience to his work at the bar, and regularly advises unions, and sub-groups within unions, about the lawfulness of industrial action and the interpretation of union rules.

Recent work includes:

• Advising Unite the Union as to whether a proposed below-inflation pay increase for hundreds of its members led to breaches of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015.

• Advising a political grouping within a national union as to the interpretation of the union’s rules on internal decision-making.

• Advising a national union as to the lawfulness of an employer’s proposed pay-cut for a large number of members, and as to industrial strategy following this.

• Advising a trade union on the lawfulness of proposed industrial action against Isle of Man and Guernsey-based employers.

International employment law

Finnian has a specialist practice in employment disputes with an international dimension. He advises and litigates claims raising questions of territorial jurisdiction, international jurisdiction and applicable law, and he is comfortable applying the full gamut of domestic, European, and private international legal principles in such cases.

Recent work includes:

• Advising a trade union on the lawfulness of proposed industrial action against Isle of Man and Guernsey-based employers.

• Persuading a Tribunal that it had jurisdiction over CNN in respect of a high-profile international correspondent’s claims for discrimination and unfair dismissal in Bhatti v CNN Case Number: 2204637/2018 (11 August 2023) (with Paras Gorasia and Jen Robinson), see here.

• Advising and representing a captain of a cruise ship in his whistleblowing and unfair dismissal claims.

• Persuading a tribunal that an organisation wholly owned and operated by the Russian government did not benefit from state immunity.

Finnian is regularly instructed in matters covering all areas of asylum and immigration law, including in the First-Tier and Upper Tribunals, judicial review proceedings, and damages claims for unlawful detention. 

Recent highlights include: 

• Acting for a Baloch climate activist whose asylum claim arose from threats to their family after they criticised the Pakistani government at a major climate change summit (judgment pending). 

• Obtaining bail for multiple detainees in respect of whom the SSHD had stated an intention to remove them to Rwanda.

• Successfully persuading the Upper Tribunal that the First-tier Tribunal and SSHD had been applying the wrong test to “particular social group” in AH (Ethiopia) v SSHD Appeal No. UI-2023-004603.

• Successfully represented an Eritrean national in an asylum claim; First-tier Tribunal praised Finnian’s “admirably comprehensive skeleton” argument.

• Appearing in an Upper Tribunal asylum appeal relating to material errors of fact under E v SSHD and perversity.

• Regularly persuading tribunals to grant immigration bail to clients, both in the First-tier Tribunal and in detention centre courtrooms. Finnian has a strong commitment to pro bono work and regularly volunteers for Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID).

Civil claims

Finnian recently drafted pleadings on behalf of five claimants who were detained in Manston House by the Home Office. He regularly advises on and acts in other damages claims arising from unlawful immigration detention. He has also conducted infant settlement-related hearings on behalf of children and protected parties.

Finnian accepts instructions in Environmental and Climate Justice. He is regularly instructed in climate matters that intersect with other areas of his practice, including in public law and civil claims. 

Recent work includes:

• Working with Greenpeace UK on judicial review proceedings challenging the grants of consent for the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields, see here.  

• Drafting amicus submissions sent to the Inter-American Court on Human Rights as part of its Advisory Opinion on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights, instructed by the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), Global Action Plan, and Kyklos (alongside Ben Cooper KC, Louise Willocx, and Toby Fisher), see here.

• Acting for an advertising worker in her Employment Tribunal claims against a multinational advertising agency for suspending her after she made allegations of greenwashing about them.

• Acting for a former advertising worker in relation to forthcoming High Court proceedings concerning the enforceability of a settlement agreement which interferes with his climate activism regarding greenwashing.

• Acting for a Baloch climate activist whose asylum claim arose from threats to their family after they criticised the Pakistani government at a major climate change summit (judgment pending).

• Advising a group of local landowners in relation to the environmental and climate impacts of a local waste processing plant. 

• Delivering training and webinars on climate-related issues, including on climate whistleblowing and climate migration.