On April 10, Justice Lane ruled that eight Afghan nationals who worked closely with news organisations such as the BBC could be classified as having worked “alongside” a government department, in partnership with or closely supporting that department and hence could be considered for relocation under category 4 of the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy, The Times reported.
In the case between the King’s Bench Division and the secretary of state for defence and another, the judge also maintained that while this ruling qualified in parts the claims of eight Afghans for judicial review of the secretary of state for defence’s refusal of their applications for relocation under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy, it did not make it binding for the secretary of state for the Home Office to exercise her discretion to allow them to enter the UK outside the Immigration Rules.
The case came up for consideration after the defence secretary refused the applications of those journalists, some of whom had already left Afghanistan while others were in hiding in the country, under the defence secretary’s Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy 2021 designed to help those who had worked for the UK government or supported the UK armed forces’ mission in Afghanistan.
Their claims for applications for relocation along with their families under the policy were rejected because organizations like the BBC were not part of the government and hence did not meet the policy criteria. Justice Lane overruled that on the ground that working for the BBC could be construed by organisations like the Taliban as having worked in partnership with or closely supported the UK government because it exposed the applicants to elevated risks of targeted attacks. The other claim of the applicants was that the defence secretary had gone against the duty of fairness at common law by not providing them with detailed reasons for the rejection of their applications. Justice Lane ruled that since the 128,000 applications under the policy far exceeded the expected number of applications when the scheme opened, what amounted to fairness had to be context-specific. Detailed replies to each applicant would cost valuable time and money, which is why the applicant had to be satisfied with, and would be fairly served with, template letters.
