The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (“SIAC”) has today handed down judgment granting the release to the media of parts of the information sought in the case of H6 vs Secretary of State for the Home Department (SC/205/2023).
Yang Tengbo was excluded from the United Kingdom in March 2023. In a judgment handed down in December 2024, SIAC ruled that the Secretary of State was entitled to conclude that the applicant represented a risk to the national security of the UK.
The information in dispute included: (i) information provided by Mr Yang on which the Commission heard argument in private during the first day of the hearing in July 2024 (“the personal information”), (ii) information which it was said was imparted to Mr Yang in confidence and /or information which is commercially sensitive (“the commercial information”) and (iii) a witness statement written by Dominic Hampshire, a senior advisor to Prince Andrew, in support of Yang Tengbo’s review of his exclusion from the UK which Mr Yang decided not to rely on at the hearing.
SIAC has ruled that the media were not entitled to receive the personal information, but that they were entitled to (i) almost all of the commercial information, with redactions applied to two specific pieces of information, and (ii) the witness statement of Dominic Hampshire, save for redactions applied to two words.
This represents a win for the media parties in this high-profile access to court documents case.
5RB’s Adam Wolanski KC and Hannah Gilliland acted on behalf of various media organisations.
Access the judgment here.
Various media outlets have reported on today’s judgment, including The Guardian, The Times and The Telegraph.