Patel briefs Pannick

Home secretary to be represented by two QCs in Rwanda challenge

I hear that Lord Pannick QC is to represent the home secretary in the High Court next month at a hearing to decide whether Priti Patel can lawfully send asylum-seekers to Rwanda. The barrister will appear alongside Sir James Eadie QC, who as first treasury counsel takes on the most demanding cases for the government.

The two QCs, both members of Blackstone Chambers, often appear against each other — most famously in the two challenges brought by Gina Miller over whether the government could trigger Brexit and prorogue parliament. Pannick won both cases for Miller in the Supreme Court.

Lord Pannick QC

As a crossbench peer, Pannick voted against aspects of Patel’s Nationality and Borders Bill, since passed by parliament. As a barrister, though, he is known to be a strong supporter of the bar’s so-called cab-rank rule — meaning that he will take the first fare offered when he is available for hire, regardless of whether the customer wants to go north or south of the river.

The government’s decision to brief Pannick as well as Eadie shows how much importance it attaches to defending its Rwanda asylum policy against the legal challenges that Mr Justice Swift will hear between July 19 and July 21.

Claims by several asylum-seekers have already been considered by the High Court, the Court of Appeal, the UK Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights — but only on the narrow question of whether the balance of convenience favoured allowing the claimants to remain in the UK until the lawfulness of the home secretary’s policy had been decided.

Swift decided that the importance of Patel being able to implement her policy in the meantime outweighed the problems which they might suffer if removed to Rwanda. The other UK judges agreed, but the Strasbourg court then blocked their removal until the hearing next month.

Pannick does not win every case in which he appears — his is sometimes briefed because a case is almost unwinnable — but it’s often said that if he can’t win a case for a client then nobody can.

By securing his services, the government has stopped solicitors for the asylum-seekers instructing Pannick in the High Court or the appeals that are likely to follow. Three junior members of Blackstone Chambers are already representing some of the claimants, along with QCs from other chambers.