R (Lord Carlile of Berriew QC and others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

[2014] UKSC 60

UKSC 2013/0098

R (on the application of Lord Carlile of Berriew QC and others) (Appellants) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent)

On appeal from the Court of Appeal (Civil division) (England and Wales)

This appeal related to the Secretary of State’s decision to maintain the prohibition on an Iranian dissident entering the United Kingdom and whether this decision was a disproportionate restriction of the rights of the Appellants to freedom of expression. The first to fifteenth Appellants are cross-party members of the House of Lords and the House of Commons ("the Parliamentary Appellants"). The sixteenth Appellant, Mrs Maryam Rajavi, is a dissident Iranian politician resident in Paris who has been excluded from the United Kingdom since 1997. The Parliamentary Appellants wished to invite Mrs Rajavi to address meetings in Westminster to discuss important diplomatic issues relating to Iran, and Mrs Rajavi was and is willing to come. The Secretary of State maintained Mrs Rajavi’s exclusion on foreign policy/security grounds, in particular because there was a risk that, if permitted to enter the UK, there would be retaliation by the Iranian regime including the risk of damage to the British Embassy in Tehran and mistreatment of embassy staff. The Appellants contended there had been interference with their Article 10 rights (freedom of expression) caused by decisions of the Secretary of State in 2011/2 to maintain Mrs Rajavi’s exclusion from the UK. The Appellants’ application for judicial review was dismissed by the Divisional Court and their appeal dismissed by the Court of Appeal who both held the exclusion to be justified and proportionate.
The Supreme Court dismisses the appeal by a majority of 4-1.

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