Windrush and the Law

With successive restrictions applied to immigration laws and the creation of “hostile environment” immigration policies, thousands of undocumented people were denied their legal right to British citizenship.  Many of those affected were part of the ‘Windrush generation’, Caribbean-born migrants who travelled to the UK between the end of the 2nd World War and the 1970s. Despite their entitlement to live in the UK, many lost their jobs and access to public services and benefits. Some were detained or deported.

These injustices became known as the Windrush Scandal, which was first publicly reported in 2017. In 2018 the UK government acknowledged the Scandal and committed to righting the wrongs and compensate those harmed by it. Lawyers and law firms have since worked on behalf of those affected by the scandal to support their claims to their legal rights.

This panel discussion will examine the history of the Windrush Scandal in a Caribbean and transnational context.  They will explore changing immigration and nationality legislation and how lawyers have worked on behalf of the ‘Windrush’ scandal victims to establish their legal claims.  As the first of thirty recommendations in the Wendy Williams Windrush Lessons Learned Review talks about the harm done to members of the African Caribbean community, panellists will reflect on what can be done to repair the damage.   A ‘Windrush Act’ briefing document, produced by WD Legal, will be shared with registrants for their review.

Panellists

● Anthony Brown, Co-founder of Windrush Defenders Legal C.I.C.

● Grace Brown, Joint Head of Garden Court Chambers

● Devyani Prabhat, Professor in Law at University of Bristol Law School

● Audrey Macklin, Professor and Rebecca Cook Chair in Human Rights Law, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto (Discussant)

Chair

Marilyn Clarke, Head Librarian, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies 

Programme

18:00 – 18:05 – Introduction by the chair, Marilyn Clarke

18:05 – 18:50 – Speakers’ presentations (15 min each)

18:50 – 19:10 – Response & questions

19:10 – 19:40 – Audience Q&A

19:40 – 20:30 – Drinks & Networking

Bios

Anthony Brown is the co-founder of Windrush Defenders Legal C.I.C. (WD Legal) and Chairman of Preston Windrush Generation and Descendants UK. He is a member of the Home Office's Windrush Stakeholder Advisory Group and a member of Windrush National Organisation. WD Legal conducts pro bono weekly surgeries to assist victims of the Windrush Scandal to apply for documentation to confirm their legal status and then to apply for compensation. WD Legal is campaigning for law reform to protect future generations with legislation in a 'Windrush Act' that places a legal duty on public bodies to tackle the race disparities exposed by the Governments Race Disparity Audit 2017. The 'Act' would also establish a Commonwealth Community Cohesion Fund'. Anthony faced the threat of deportation in 1983 when he fell foul of the 1971 Immigration Act for living outside the UK for more than two years.

Grace Brown is Joint Head of Garden Court Chambers.  She is an immigration expert and human rights experts with particular strength in cases regarding deportation, including those challenging actions brought against 'Windrush migrants'. She represents vulnerable children and their families in a range of matters throughout the courts and tribunals. She commenced practice in 1995 inspired by the desire to promote the rights of the underprivileged and disadvantaged and quickly established herself as a well-respected and busy human rights and immigration barrister.  She is appointed to the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s preferred Panel of Counsel and was awarded the 2021 BSN Lawyer of the Year, in the Chambers category, at the UK Diversity Legal Awards.

Devyani Prabhat (LLM, PhD, NYU) is a Professor of Law at University of Bristol Law School with legal practice experience in Constitutional law. She researches, supervises, and teaches Public Law (Migration, Citizenship, Constitutional Rights) from a socio-legal and comparative perspective. Professor Prabhat has written and edited a number of books. Her monograph Unleashing the Force of Law: Legal Mobilization, National Security, Basic Freedoms ( Palgrave Macmillan) won the Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship. Currently she is engaged in comparing how different empires dealt with movement and legal status of people within their realms and the current manifestations of those measures.

Audrey Macklin is Professor of Law and Chair in Human Rights, at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law.  From 2017-2023, she was Director of the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies. She teaches, researches and writes in the area of migration and citizenship law, business and human rights, and administrative law.  She is co-author of the Governance Gap: Extractive Industries, Human Rights, and the Home State Advantage (London: Routledge: 2014), the Canadian text, Immigration and Refugee Law: Cases, Materials and Commentary, 2nd Edition (Toronto: Emond Montgomery, 2015), as well as dozens of published journal articles and book chapters.  Prof. Macklin frequently comments in Canadian and international print, radio and television media She has also represented public interest interveners before all levels of court in Canada From 1994-96, she was a Member of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board.

Marilyn Clarke has an MSc in Race and Ethnic Relations, Birkbeck. She has worked in HE libraries for over 30 years and is currently the Head Librarian at IALS.  She is a member of the University of London Race Equality Charter Self-Assessment team, and the Libraries Inclusivity Group.  She focuses her work on delivering an inclusive service to all library users, leading on decolonisation initiatives, and highlighting issues around diversity, racial inequality, and the lack of Global Majority representation in libraries and HE, particularly at senior level.  She is a library sector lead on anti-racist and anti-colonial approaches to tackling inequities in libraries and has presented on the theme of decolonisation of library collections and professional practices at several library sector conferences.  She’s also written journal articles and book chapters on these themes.

Image source: Andy Scott, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

This event is free to attend, but booking is required.