FP (Iran) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2007] EWCA Civ 13

• Two people were not notified as to the dates of their asylum appeals hearings (the letters were sent to their old addresses) and hence they were absent from court when their hearings were held. Under the rules governing the tribunals this was permissible.

• CA said that this was in breach of rights under HRA and that the overall aim of the rules was to produce a fair trial, which the court breached.

  • Hence the appeals of the asylum seekers were allowed.

LJ Sedley

• Doesn’t explicitly state which conception of the rule of law he is following but says that the rules are contrary to the rule of law due to lack of fairness in allowing a person’s hearing to go ahead in their absence when their absence is no fault of their own (in this case it was their attorney’s fault) and thus taking away their “right to a fair access to the courts”.

  • The language of rights suggest a substantive conception but in fact access to courts is a foundation of Raz’s conception