Court of Appeal: Haddon-Cave, Nicola Davies and Nugee LJJ, [2021] EWCA Civ 898 [2021] 4 WLR 94, 15 June 2021

This was an unsuccessful claim brought under Article 14 ECHR read with Article 5 and/or 8 to Rule 7(1A) of the Prison Rules 1999, which prevented the transfer to open conditions of prisoners in respect of whom deportation orders had been made to take effect on release from lengthy prison sentences. The Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the the Divisional Court (Hickinbottom LJ and Johnson J) essentially on the same grounds as the Divisional Court had relied upon, rejecting the claim that the discrimination in issue was on grounds of nationality (a suspect ground) and applying the “manifestly without reasonable foundation” test, albeit as modified by the Court of Appeal in R (Drexler) v Leicestershire County Council [2020] EWCA Civ 502. Continue reading →