Daniel Carey

Solicitor

“I am writing to express my heartfelt gratitude for everything [Daniel has] done for me and my family. [His] dedication, hard work and support throughout my case have meant more to us than words can express. Thanks to [his] efforts, my wife, my children and I have been given the opportunity to live in safety and rebuild our lives. I truly believe that [his] assistance has made a life-saving difference to my family.”

Client

“Dan is a super committed and excellent practitioner.”

Chambers Legal Directory, 2026 (Administrative & Public Law, Traditional Claimant, Band 1)

“Daniel is one of the best solicitors operating at the moment. [...] Dan gives the highest level of client care and leaves no stone unturned.”

Chambers Legal Directory, 2026 (Civil Liberties & Human Rights)

Background

Daniel Carey is a partner who joined Deighton Pierce Glynn in 2013, specialising in judicial review and civil actions, often involving human rights and cross-jurisdictional issues. He is ranked as a leading solicitor in both categories of work in legal directories. He has been recognised as “a fantastic and dedicated lawyer” and “one of the most innovative human rights lawyers out there” who “has a great range of expertise and is really very good at running a large legal team. He is really impressive”.

Previously, Daniel was a solicitor at another leading human rights firm, before which he worked in Guatemala for Peace Brigades International and on US death penalty cases as a volunteer with Reprieve. Daniel received the Law Society New Solicitor of the Year award in 2007 for his work in Guatemala. He also received the Peter Duffy Award from Liberty and JUSTICE in 2009. His work assisting applicants under the UK government’s Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP), was instrumental in the firm being named Legal Aid Firm of the Year at the 2023 Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards. He has been twice named The Times Lawyer of the Week.

Expertise

Human Rights

Daniel specialises in human rights claims, often involving an international law element. He has brought cases at all levels of the domestic courts and before the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the EU.

Judicial Review and Public Law

Daniel has substantial experience in public law challenges to local and national government. He has acted for claimants in successful judicial reviews of decisions and policies under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP); surveillance legislation; investigations into mistreatment in military detention; national consultations on changes to legal aid funding and migrant access to healthcare; local authority library closures; the proposed use of largescale asylum camps; unlawful immigration detention; inadequate asylum support housing; and failures to recognise victims of human trafficking, amongst others.

Civil Liberties

Daniel acts in civil claims for damages regarding serious abuses of power, including false imprisonment in military and immigration detention, torture and rendition; exposure to risks to life due to failings in the ARAP scheme; and serious data breaches.

Data Protection, Information and Privacy Law

Daniel has a particular interest in data protection law and public access to information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. His cases often focus on the crossover between data protection and human rights law, such as successful legal challenges to state surveillance and data retention legislation; the unlawful sharing of asylum seekers’ confidential information; the mishandling of information under the UK’s Prevent Guidance; the ARAP data breach of February 2022 and others.

Discrimination

Daniel’s work also tackles issues of discrimination. For example, in public law cases regarding the Public Sector Equality Duty, which requires public authorities to take positive steps to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between different groups.

Public Inquiries

Daniel’s work includes representing victims before major public inquiries into instances of serious wrongdoing, including wrongful deaths.

Sample Cases

Significant cases in which Daniel has acted include:

Big Brother Watch & others v UK (European Court of Human Rights (Grand Chamber)) (2020) – successful challenge to mass internet surveillance by the British Government, based on Art 8 ECHR.

Rahmatullah v Ministry of Defence & others (High Court) (2019) – successful civil claim for damages regarding UK detention and mistreatment and failure to prevent US unlawful rendition (from Iraq to Afghanistan), incommunicado detention and torture of an individual between 2004-2014.

Al-Skeini v United Kingdom (European Court of Human Rights (Grand Chamber)) (2011) – landmark case on extra-territorial jurisdiction of ECHR in the Iraq conflict.

R (Al-Saadoon) v Secretary of State for Defence (Court of Appeal and European Court of Human Rights) (2010) – successful challenge to the UK government’s transfer of detainees to the death penalty, resulting in landmark ruling that the death penalty was per se in violation of the ECHR.

R (MA & KH) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (2022) – successful judicial review of the Home Office’s secret, blanket policy of seizing, retaining and extracting data from the mobile phones of asylum seekers arriving in the UK by small boats.

R (Al-Haq) v Secretary of State for Business and Trade (2025) – represented Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in an intervention in a challenge to the UK government’s arms export licensing decisions to Israel in the context of the conflict in Gaza.

R (TPL1) v Secretary of State for Defence (2025) – successful judicial review of the inadequacies of the UK government’s “Triples Review” reappraising thousands of applications received from Afghan special forces under the ARAP scheme.

R (ALO) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (2022) – successful judicial review of a refusal of entry clearance to the UK for a ARAP grantee, made on national security grounds.

R (BAL) v Secretary of State for Defence (2022) – successful judicial review of a refusal of ARAP protection for the family members of a senior Afghan counter-narcotics judge.

R (Ammori) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (2026) – acting for Amnesty International in their intervention in the judicial review of the proscription of the group ‘Palestine Action’ under terrorism legislation

R (MN & ZR) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Prime Minister & Others (2023) – successful judicial review of the suspension of the relocations of Afghan ARAP grantees from Pakistan to the UK (conceded).

R (CBC) v Secretary of State for Defence (2026) – successful judicial review of ARAP refusal for long serving security guards of the British Embassy in Kabul.

R (Watson) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Court of Justice of the EU (Grand Chamber) (2017) – acted for the interveners, Open Rights Group and Privacy International, in a successful challenge to the UK’s legislative regime for mass retention of telecommunications information.

R (Cushnie) v Secretary of State for Health (High Court) (2015) (and R (Marfo & Ali) v Secretary of State for Health (High Court) (2016)) – successful challenges to regulations preventing access to funded healthcare for disabled former asylum.

R (MK) v Secretary of State for Home Department (High Court) (2020) – challenge to systemic delays in the determination of asylum claims by unaccompanied children.

R (Evans (No.2)) v Secretary of State for Justice (High Court) (2011) – successful challenge to changes to legal aid provision on basis of unlawful undisclosed interference by the Ministry of Defence.

R (Green) v Gloucestershire County Council & R (Rowe & Hird) v Somerset County Council (High Court) (2011) – successful challenges to library closures, relying on the Public Sector Equality Duty.

R (Evans) v Secretary of State for Defence (High Court) (2010) – partially successful judicial review challenge to the British military’s practice of handing over detainees to torture in Afghanistan.

R (Ali Zaki Mousa (No.2) v Secretary of State for Defence (High Court) (2013) – successful challenge to MoD arrangements for investigating deaths in custody and mistreatment.

Kingston Council v Moss (High Court) (2019) – successful declaration that Kingston Council was liable to social housing tenants in relation to historic overcharging for water.

Confidential (2019) – a claim for damages and correction/deletion of data regarding information shared by public authorities concerning a primary school age child mistakenly referred under the UK Government’s ‘Prevent’ Guidance.