Background
Ahmed Aydeed is a Partner in DPG’s Public Law department, leading a team of lawyers in the London office. He has extensive expertise in advising individuals on all types of Public Law and Human Rights matters, with his team specialising in complex strategic group litigation.
Ahmed trained at a large Legal Aid law firm where he was made a Director and his work has positively impacted the lives of countless vulnerable adults, children, refugees, and victims of torture, slavery & human trafficking.
In addition to being ranked in the Chambers and Legal 500 directories, Ahmed has received numerous accolades for his contributions to the legal field. In 2017, he won the Law Society’s Excellence Award for Junior Lawyer of the Year. He was “Highly Commended” in the Human Rights Lawyer of the Year category at the Law Society Excellence Awards in both 2018 and 2020. In 2018, he was also shortlisted for Partner of the Year at the Birmingham Law Society Legal Awards. In 2019, he was a finalist for ECPAT UK’s Children’s Champion Award and won the Marsh Award at the Human Trafficking Foundation’s Anti-Slavery Day Awards. That same year, he was named the Rising Star Award winner at the UK Diversity Legal Awards.
Sample cases
ADL and ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWHC 994 (Admin). Group test litigation which concerned the legality of the imposition of GPS tracking of migrants.
JB v Home Secretary [2022] EWCA Civ 1392. A challenge to the underpayment of trafficking support to victims housed in full board asylum accommodation during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Court of Appeal upheld the High Court’s judgment, which found that victims were entitled to a total cash payment of £65/week, and ordered back-payments. The Home Secretary agreed to institute a scheme for the back-payments of persons who had been similarly underpaid.
R (BVN) v SSHD [2022] EWHC 1159 (Admin). Challenge concerning the lawfulness of the Secretary of State’s policy on the circumstances in which a potential victim of trafficking has given consent to withdraw from the NRM and the jurisdiction of the Secretary of State to impose bail conditions following the grant of High Court bail.
R (KTT) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWHC 2722 (Admin) & Court of Appeal [2022] EWCA Civ 306. Landmark ruling that confirmed victims of modern slavery are entitled to leave pending resolution of their asylum claims, upheld in the Court of Appeal.
R (EDC) v SSHD [2020]. Challenge regarding the gathering and retention of private and privileged information from trafficking victims.
NN and LP v SSHD [2019] EWHC 1003 (Admin). Landmark group litigation which ended to 45-day support limit for confirmed victims of slavery; and led to its replacement with a needs-based assessment of entitlement to support)
R(TN)(US) v SSHD [2019] 1 WLR 2647; [2017] 1 W.L.R. 2595; [2019] 1 WLR 2675
R (on the application of TN (Vietnam)) v SSHD UKSC/2020/0031
This was a group action case, it was chosen by the court as the lead case on the vires of the 2005 Fast Track (Tribunal Procedure) Rules. The court declared that the 2005 Fast Track (Tribunal Procedure) Rules were structurally unfair & ultra vires. It rejected the argument that the determinations reached were automatically a nullity, and explored the approach to be taken to setting them aside and the correct forum for doing so. The matter was finally determined by the Supreme Court in 2020.
S.A.C. v United Kingdom (App no. 31428/2018). The ECtHR granted S.A.C. interim relief under Rule 39 of the court’s procedures. On communicating the case, it asked whether concealment of sexual orientation to avoid ill-treatment is compatible with convention rights. Before trial, the UK conceded and granted SAC refugee status.
R (TH and Ors) v SSHD [2016] EWHC 1331 (Admin); [2016] EWCA Civ 815. Acted for three of four test claimants in challenging the revised detained asylum process post-suspension of the DFT, establishing the scheme breached section 149 of the Equality Act 2010.
R (Zafar) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] EWHC 1217 (Admin) (25 May 2016). The High Court struck down the Home Secretary’s refusal and certification of an asylum claim which was made in the structurally unfair and unjust Detained Fast Track (DFT) and ordered the Home Secretary to remake the decision afresh without regard to material obtained in the unfair process. The High Court also directed the Home Secretary to pay substantial damages for falsely imprisoning the Claimant, a vulnerable victim of torture, for 213 days as a result of subjecting him to an unlawful detained fast track asylum process and seeking to return him to Pakistan without giving him the opportunity to have his asylum claim fairly determined.
Alvi & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] – Upper Tribunal – Judicial Review where generic relief was obtained by way of the ‘Rule 32’ process for all persons subject to an unlawful appellate process within the Detained Fast Track, reopening all appeals heard under the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) Rules 2014 upon application, without more.
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