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UK Home Office faces possible lawsuit arising from deportation of Jamaicans

Britain's Home Office is facing a possible lawsuit against the background of a probe of the recent deportation of a group of Jamaicans.

The Home Office has reportedly agreed to release information concerning whether it deported persons who did not have access to working phones to contact their lawyers.

This could result in legal action being brought against it.

At a hearing on Tuesday, lawyers for UK-based human rights lobby group, Detention Action, asked the Home Office to provide information whether detainees who were unable to contact their lawyers by phone had been removed from Britain since February 3.

A High Court judge gave the Home Office until February 28 to provide answers.

A report in the Guardian newspaper says, depending on the response, Detention Action will consider whether to proceed with legal action against the Home Office.

An emergency ruling by Britain's Court of Appeal last week prevented the authorities from removing anyone from the UK who had been held at two detention centres near Heathrow Airport, where there had been a problem with the phone network in the weeks before.

The judgment came hours before a deportation charter flight to Jamaica.

The decision followed a legal challenge by Detention Action, which expressed concern that mobile phone outages had prevented detainees from accessing justice.

Home Office guidance states that detainees have the right to five days of access to their lawyers before any removal takes place.

The flight to Jamaica left with just 17 detainees aboard.

Twenty-five people from the Heathrow detention centres did not leave and eight others due to board the flight issued individual challenges that meant they did not have to board the plane.

 

 

 



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