Chambers are delighted to announce that we have been short-listed as a finalist in the Lexis Nexis Awards 2020 in two categories: Pro Bono Award and Case of the Year.
For some time now, Chambers has showcased its pro bono work through the immigration team. The team’s submission entitled “Justice for All in a Hostile Environment” featured members’ work on individual pro bono cases, encouraged and driven by Head of Chambers, Anthony Metzer QC, who was recently recognised by the Bar (through Advocate) as Pro Bono QC of the Year with another member Sanaz Saifolahi being highly commended in the Junior Pro Bono Barrister of the Year category as well as the team’s inception of pro bono programmes.
The programmes include running a pro bono advice clinic for Cassandra Centre, a charity supporting victims of domestic abuse, regularly act in bail and Article 8 hearings for clients of Bail for Immigration Detainees and undertaking pro bono appeal hearings for RAMFEL (Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex and London), an organisation which supports destitute and street homeless migrants. In addition, individual members across the team regularly assist many organisations by providing voluntary advice and support to, for instance, UKLGIG, the British Red Cross, journalist members of the Marie Colvin Journalists’Network and Al Jazeera.
In 2019, Chambers also forged a partnership between its immigration team and FENIX Humanitarian Legal Aid, an NGO based in Lesvos, Greece to provide asylum seekers there with accurate and timely legal information as well as consistent and reliable access to legal advice. FENIX relies almost entirely upon volunteer lawyers. We encourage our members to take time out of practice and volunteer in the field and we also provide remote assistance to field teams by offering strategic advice on individual cases, documenting systemic HR abuses, advising on country information and returns policies throughout the EU, and drafting representations.
For Case of the Year, Chambers show-cased the litigation of Secretary of State for the Home Department v Banger (“Banger”). Anthony led Sanaz in at the Upper Tribunal in April 2016. They were both initially instructed by Sterling Law, who had made the initial application for a residence card to the SSHD. Given the novel legal issues raised within the appeal, the Upper Tribunal made a Preliminary Reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in February 2017 and stayed the UK proceedings pending Judgment in the CJEU, which was delivered in July 2018. Anthony and Sanaz both acted pro bono and on a direct access basis from the point of Reference to the conclusion of the appeal in the Upper Tribunal in April 2019. This work included all written submissions, bundle preparation and appearing at the hearings at the CJEU in Luxembourg and the two Upper Tribunal hearings in the UK as well as the client conferences. Both Anthony’s and Sanaz’ pro bono work was recognised by Advocate, as mentioned above, principally in relation to this case.
