Alan Payne QC and John Goss appear for Home Secretary in UK Supreme Court in significant case relating to asylum seekers and parental abduction

On 25-27 January 2021, Alan Payne QC and John Goss appeared in the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (Lords Lloyd-Jones, Hamblen, Leggatt, Burrows, Stephens JJSC) for the Secretary of State for the Home Department in the important case of G v G.

The case concerns the interaction between the Hague Convention 1980 (which deals with summary return of children abducted from their country of habitual residence) and international, EU and domestic law relating to asylum seekers and refugees. The appellant mother was seeking to challenge the Court of Appeal’s decision to remove a stay on the determination of the respondent father’s application for the summary return under the Hague Convention of her child, whom she had taken from their home country to the UK, where she had claimed asylum. She argued that children named as dependants on a parent’s asylum application should, in some circumstances, have protection from refoulement, and that this would act as a bar to determining any application for a return order. The Secretary of State intervened to provide assistance to the Court on immigration policy and practice.

Judgment is awaited. Alan and John previously acted for the Secretary of State in the Court of Appeal, whose decision is at [2020] EWCA Civ 1185. They are regularly instructed by Government departments and other public bodies in the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and High Court.