Gareth Rhys

Public Law & Human Rights

Gareth accepts instructions across all areas of public law and human rights. He is a member of the Attorney General’s London C panel of Counsel.

Selected Cases

• Gareth appeared as sole counsel in the Supreme Court of St Helena in a human rights claim brought under the Constitution by a former elected Member of St Helena’s legislature. The alleged breaches arose from the conditions at HMP Jamestown during the Claimant’s time in remand. It was the first claim to involve the human rights provisions of the St Helena Constitution. Gareth is instructed on six more associated human rights claims.
• Advising a potential intervener on the judicial review of the Home Office’s use of Wethersfield Airfield as a site to accommodate asylum-seekers on the basis that the Home Office failed to adopt adequate procedures for screening and monitoring vulnerabilities that made them unsuitable for accommodation on a large scale former military site.

As a Judicial Assistant in the Court of Appeal, Gareth worked on:

• R (Friends of the Earth Ltd) v Secretary of State for International Trade/Export Credits Guarantee Department (UK Export Finance) [2022] EWHC 568 (Admin) a judicial review concerning the lawfulness of the decision by the Secretary of State for International Trade to finance a liquefied natural gas project in Mozambique in light of the UK’s commitments under the Paris Agreement.
• R (Akinsanya) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 37 concerning the definition of Zambrano carers in the context of the European Union Settlement Scheme.
• R (Palmer) v Northern Derbyshire Magistrates’ Court [2021] EWHC 3013 (Admin), a judicial review concerning whether an administrator appointed under Part II of the Insolvency Act 1986 is an “officer” of the company within the meaning of the phrase “director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate” so as to fall within s194(3) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.