Alex Grigg of the Garden Court Immigration, Public & Community Care Law Teams acted for MAH, instructed by Bahar Ata, Katie Nelson & Ana Isabel Hart of Duncan Lewis Solicitors.
Alex Grigg previously represented MAH pro bono in the Asylum Support Tribunal, instructed by Mark Rogers and Richard Copson of the Asylum Appeals Project (ASAP); then also successfully (instructed by Duncan Lewis) in the High Court and Court of Appeal.
The Supreme Court has refused the Home Secretary permission to appeal against a ruling confirming that the Asylum Support Tribunal has the jurisdiction to hear appeals against decisions or refuse asylum support where an asylum claim has been treated as “implicitly withdrawn”.
This was refused on the basis that the application does not raise an arguable point of law.
In December 2025, the Court of Appeal dismissed the Secretary of State’s appeal and upheld earlier decisions of both the Asylum Support Tribunal and the High Court.
In recent years, the Home Office has made increasingly extensive use of its power to treat asylum claims as having been “implicitly withdrawn”. This occurs where the Home Office alleges that an asylum seeker has failed to comply with part of the asylum process, most commonly by not attending an interview.
Those arguments have now been rejected at every stage of legal proceedings. The Asylum Support Tribunal, the High Court (Chamberlain J), the Court of Appeal, have all held that affected individuals do have a right of appeal, and that the Tribunal is entitled to examine whether an asylum claim was properly treated as withdrawn.
Supreme Court website: SSHD (Appellant) v The FtT (Asylum Support) (Respondent) – UK Supreme Court
Link to judgment (Court of Appeal): Secretary of State for the Home Department v MAH & Ors [2025] EWCA Civ 1654
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