Alun Jones QC is a renowned silk known for his years of extradition experience who has handled cases all the way to the Supreme Court. He has acted for clients in a broad variety of extradition matters, including those relating to murder and genocide. Martin Henley has a solely defence practice in extradition and has developed unique arguments relating to the Extradition Act 2003. He has appeared at all levels from the Magistrates’ Court up to and including the House of Lords.

Here Alun and Martin explain the legal rights and protection that refugees and asylum seekers are entitled to in the UK. Alun gives an introduction to set the scene, before Martin moves on to talk about the practical procedures at the Magistrates court. They begin by outlining the pre-hearing stage, before moving on to the hearing stage.

Key words/topics

Extradition 

Refugees 

Asylum Seekers

Human Rights

European Convention of Human Rights

1951 Refugee Convention Article 31

Human Rights Act 1998

Section 55 of the Nationality Immigration and Asylum Act 2002

R v Secretary of State for the Home Department Ex Parte Limbuela [2005] UKHL 66

Article 3 Torture and Inhumane or Degrading Treatment

Article 6 The Right to a Fair Trial

Article 8 The Right to Respect for Private and Family Life

More about Alun Jones QC and Martin Henley

Alun Jones QC is a specialist in extradition, mutual legal assistance, international crime, financial crime, crime, judicial review, asset confiscation, international arbitration and immunity cases. He has also appeared in the higher appellate courts in insolvency, commercial, planning and defamation cases when they have been connected with matters within his normal areas of practice.

He spent the first ten years of his career before juries in London learning and developing advocacy skills and then gradually specialised. In 2005, he founded and became Head of Great James Street Chambers. Alun Jones values his professional independence. He is not a member of a political party or a part time judge. (He was a Recorder of the Crown Court from 1990-1997.) He has been married since 1974 and has four adult children. He lives in London and the Weald of Kent. His private interests are rural conservation, gardening, local history, chess and cricket.

Martin Henley is a late entrant to the bar. He has had a varied career firstly teaching in Liverpool and Sierra Leone and latterly running a print business. For two years prior to coming to the bar Martin was a paralegal for the Rights and Advice Consultancy a specialist practice working on complex public law children matters and judicial review and actions against local authorities especially where there had been a failure by a local authority to protect children from serious sexual abuse. 

(See https://greatjames.co.uk/members/alun-jones/ and https://greatjames.co.uk/members/martin-henley/ for more information)