Laura Dubinsky KC

Career

Laura appears in public law cases at all levels, with a particular focus upon cases with a refugee, immigration law or ECHR dimension. She is regularly instructed in test challenges to government policy and systemic failure; and in cases concerning novel or complex points of statutory construction. She often leads large multi-counsel teams, on behalf of multiple claimants or on behalf of a single party in major litigation.

Laura’s practice also embraces asylum, immigration and deportation appeals and, in particular, the interface between refugee and extradition law (in which she is instructed by high profile individuals).

The civil liberties element of Laura’s practice includes challenges to the scope of bail powers; the unlawful imposition of COVID curfews or administrative detention through habeas corpus, judicial review and civil actions for damages.

She is also instructed in cases concerning the ECHR (and previously EU law) in the supranational courts.

Laura’s clients include the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (‘UNHCR’); NGOs; and both high net worth, high profile individuals and legally aided clients.

Examples of significant cases in which Laura has acted in recent years:

• Rwanda litigation, R (AAA (Syria) and Others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] UKSC 42: leading counsel for the Intervener, UNHCR, in landmark case holding Home Secretary’s policy of removing asylum seekers to Rwanda to be unlawful. UNHCR’s evidence, and its analysis of the risks of refoulement for asylum seekers if transferred from the UK to Rwanda, were accepted to be of ‘particular significance’.

• R (IAB and Others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities [2023] EWHC 2390 (Admin): lead counsel for eight claimants challenging the Defendants’ proposals to amend the Housing Act 2004 so as to temporarily remove the requirement for licensing in multiple occupation housing accommodating asylum-seekers. In a far-reaching interlocutory judgment concerning the duty of candour (arising out of the ongoing litigation concerning licensing), the Court (i) dismissed the Defendants’ submission that they were entitled to adopt a general practice of redacting the names of junior civil servants; and (ii) accepted the Claimants’ specific challenges to the Defendants’ excessive redactions.

• R (Kaitey) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 1875, [2022] QB 695: leading counsel for the Intervener, Bail for Immigration Detainees ‘BID’, in civil liberties litigation concerning the scope of the bail power under the Immigration Act 2016. 90,000 immigrants were estimated to be affected.

• R (Humnyntskyi) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] EWHC 1912 (Admin), [2021] 1 WLR 320: leading counsel for three successful claimants in challenge to the Home Office’s policy and practice concerning accommodation for destitute immigrants under paragraph 9, Schedule 10, Immigration Act 2016.

• CI (Nigeria) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 2027, [2020] Imm. A.R. 503 , [2020] I.N.L.R. 191: leading counsel for the successful appellant in significant case concerning Article 8 ECHR and the circumstances in which a long-resident immigrant may be subject to deportation.

• R (SM) v Lord Chancellor [2021] EWHC 418 (Admin), [2021] 1 WLR 3815: leading counsel for the Intervener, BID , in important challenge to lack of legal aid provision for immigration detainees held in prisons. The lack of a duty advice scheme or equivalent was accepted to breach Article 14 read with Articles 2,3,5 and 8 ECHR.

• R (DN (Rwanda) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2020] UKSC 9, [2020] AC 698: junior counsel for Intervener Bail for Immigration Detainees in leading case concerning false imprisonment and sequential decision-making.

• Secretary of State for the Home Department v Viscu [2019] EWCA Civ 1052, [2019] 1 WLR 5376, [2020] 1 All E.R. 988: leading counsel for the Intervener, the AIRE Centre, in appeal concerning EU law protections from expulsion for long resident immigrants and the approach to be taken to a period of custody in a young offenders’ institution.

• R (JL) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] 1 WLR 4623: leading counsel for the successful appellant in challenge to employment prohibition (EU law grounds).

• R (Help Refugees) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 2098, [2018] 4 WLR 168: leading counsel in the Divisional Court and junior counsel in the Court of Appeal for the partially successful claimant NGO. Challenge to the fairness of procedures applied to transfer decisions for unaccompanied minors under the ‘Dubs Amendment’ and to the local authority consultation.

• R (Lauzikas) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 1168, [2019] 1 WLR 6625: leading counsel for the partially successful /appellant in important case concerning EU law protections applicable to administrative detention and the approach to causation and damages.