Immigration detention and mental illness in the UK: European Court of Human Rights finds against UK government violated Article 5.1 rights of mentally ill immigration detainee (V.M. v. the United Kingdom, no. 49734/12)
Published: 13 Oct 2016
The following case note is taken from the ‘Judgements and decisions of 1 September 2016’press briefing issued by the European Human Court of Human Rights. A full court transcript can be accessed here.
The case concerned the complaint by a mentally ill woman about her immigration detention pending deportation. The applicant, Ms V.M., is a Nigerian national who was born in 1977 and lives in West Drayton (England, UK). Ms V.M. entered the United Kingdom illegally on 18 November 2003 with her son. In November 2003 her son was admitted to hospital with serious injuries and then taken into care. Ms V.M. was later charged with child cruelty and convicted on 7 April 2008. Due to the seriousness of her offences, the Crown Court judge recommended deportation. Ms V.M thus remained in detention when her criminal sentence ended on 8 August 2008.
During the following three years, until her release on bail in July 2011, Ms V.M. brought a number of proceedings challenging the decision to deport her. In December 2008, the immigration authorities dismissed her appeal against her deportation. In June 2009, she also requested the decision to deport be reversed or that her representations be treated as a fresh asylum claim, referring to her poor mental health (recurrent depression and a personality disorder) and the poor standard of treatment facilities in Nigeria if she were deported. Five months later the Secretary of State refused to treat those representations as a fresh claim for asylum.
Permission to apply for judicial review was granted in May 2010 and a hearing took place in July 2010: both the Court of Appeal and the Administrative Court concluded that, in view of the serious risk of Ms V.M. absconding, re-offending or harming herself or others, she would have been detained lawfully during the period between August 2008 and April 2010 even if the policy to favour alternatives to immigration detention for the mentally ill had been considered. Ms V.M.’s bail applications were also rejected on similar grounds. During her detention, Ms V.M. had ongoing medical assessments and, by March 2010, the assessments noted that her mental health had significantly deteriorated. However, the courts reviewed all of the medical evidence in their decisions on Ms V.M.’s case and concluded that the authorities’ decision not to transfer her to hospital had been reasonable.
Relying in particular on Article 5.1 (right to liberty and security), Ms V.M. complained about the excessive length of her detention as well as the system of immigration detention in the UK, notably alleging that the time limits on the maximum period of immigration detention were unclear and that there was no automatic judicial review. She also complained that her detention from August 2008 (when her criminal sentence ended) to July 2010 (when her first application for judicial review was heard) had not been lawful as it had breached the policy on mentally ill immigration detainees.
The European Court of Human Rights found a violation of Article 5.1 in respect of the period of Ms V.M.’s immigration detention between 19 June and 14 December 2009, and awarded just satisfaction of EUR3,500 (non-pecuniary damage) and EUR 10,000 (costs and expenses).