AH, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

This judgment is supplemental to the judgment in this matter with neutral citation [2025] EWHC 3269 (Admin). In the circumstances set out below, it is made in order to ensure that there is no lack of clarity in the scope or terms of the declarations that flow from the judgment. The terms of the relevant declarations made appear at paragraph 7 below.

Before being handed down, the principal judgment in this case was provided to the parties in draft. The parties were asked to seek to agree the terms of the consequential order and they did so subject to two short disputes which the court resolved. That was set out in the judgment itself. The consequential order was, accordingly, made on handdown. It provided a timetable for any further applications.

On 9 January 2026, the defendant made an application pursuant to Part 40.12 (“the slip rule”) for the court to supplement or revise the published judgment so as to include detail of the declarations made in particular on ground 6. That was a reference to the numbered ground in AH’s case and, as I read it, the equivalent ground in IS’s case. In email correspondence with the court, the claimants stated that they were neutral on the application – they did not see the necessity for any revision or addition but they were not opposed to it. All parties were content for the application to be dealt with on paper.

The concern expressed by the defendant was that the judgment recited the declaration sought in respect of ground 6 in AH’s case (at paragraph 3(vi) of the judgment) which was the systems ground. The court’s conclusions on ground 6 in AH’s case (and the equivalent ground 3 in IS’s case) were set out at paragraph 254. The defendant recognised that the judgment did not set out the terms of the consequent declarations. That was a matter which the court had asked the parties to seek to agree and, prior to the handing down of judgment, no suggestion had been made that the consequent declarations should be incorporated into the judgment. However, the defendant now expressed a concern that, without the terms of the declarations in fact made, it might be thought that the declaration was, or the declarations were, in the terms set out in paragraph 3(vi) and/or that the judgment was otherwise unclear.

One aspect of this submission was wrong. Paragraph 3(vi) of the judgment sets out the terms of ground 6 of the claim for judicial review in AH’s case and not the terms of the declaration sought. In fact, the judgment did not recite the terms of the declarations originally sought in either AH or IS’s case. That is not, however, relevant to the nature of the concern the defendant expressed.

As I have said the application was made under the slip rule and, relying on Deutsche Bank AG v Sebastian Holdings Inc [2023] EWHC 2563 (Comm), it was submitted (i) that the slip rule permitted the court to correct “an unintended effect” or “an ambiguity in the wording of the Order” and (ii) that that encompassed the issue in this case. It is not necessary for me to undertake a detailed analysis of the Deutsche Bank case or the authorities referred to in it. It is sufficient for me to say that I doubt whether the defendant’s application falls within the slip rule. There was no accidental error or omission in either the judgment or the agreed Order. The only omission, if it could be characterised as such, was that the terms of the declarations sought by way of relief were not set out in the judgment so that they could not then be compared with the conclusion at paragraph 254. But that was not an inadvertent omission because the court intended to and did invite the parties to agree the terms of the Order that followed from the judgment. Indeed that process is referred to in the final paragraphs of the judgment. Further, there is no ambiguity in the judgment itself as to the court’s decision.

It seems to me, therefore, that the safer procedural course is for me to exercise my inherent jurisdiction to give this supplemental judgment to set out in terms the relevant declarations. Accordingly, I record that the effect of my judgment in respect of the claims in ground 6 in AH’s case and ground 3 in IS’s case was that the claimants were entitled to relief in the terms of the following declarations (which appear at paragraph 3 of the consequential Order):

“As for both Claimants:

“a.

From 28 July 2023 to 11 March 2024 the Defendant failed, in breach of Article 3 ECHR, effectively to implement the system at Brook House IRC to ensure that immigration detainees who fell within the scope of rule 35 of the Detention Centre Rules 2001 were protected from violations of their rights under Article 3 ECHR;

b.

The Defendant’s failure to identify the Claimants as adults at risk in detention, and to release them on that basis, and the Defendant’s mistreatment of the Claimants’ while in detention, was the result of the Defendant’s Article 3 systems breach identified at 3(a) above.”