Direct Dial: 020 7650 1243
Email: rstein@leighday.co.uk
FAO: Zaqia Rashid
Treasury Solicitor
DX: 123242
Kingsway
Your Ref: LT9/2628E/EMM/3A
Our Ref: JB/RS/Madni
Date: 18th August 2009
By Email & DX:
Zaqia.Rashid@tsol.gsi.gov.uk
Dear Madam,
(1) R (oao Madni)-v-Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs
(2) R (oao Madni)-v-Her Majesty’s Commissioner for British Indian Ocean
Territory
Thank you for your fax of 31 July acknowledging our Pre-action Protocol Letter
Before Claim of 13 July 2009.
We note your request that we refrain from issuing proceedings until your client has
had the opportunity to respond substantively to the letter before claim. However,
we further note that you are unable to provide us even with a putative timescale for
such a response. Your client has now had well over a month to respond to the
formal letter before action while he has been aware of the issue of the identity of
the individuals rendered through Diego Garcia and public pressure for these
details to be disclosed for well over a year. Our client is not prepared for this issue
to drag on indefinitely as it offers him the one realistic opportunity of publicly
establishing the facts of his suffering and the possibility of achieving some redress.
We note that you make reference to costs. However, the costs of preparing the
claim had already been substantially incurred by the Claimant. To delay further
would not have significantly affected the costs of this side. As to your client’s
costs, he will have review his position in respect of the Claimant’s request in any
event. If he chooses to accede to those requests then the claims will become
academic and nothing will have been lost. If he chooses not to accede then he
shall have to prepare a defence in any event. By proceeding now, the Claimant is
quite reasonably ensuring that his requests are dealt with promptly in
circumstances where yoru client has already been given ample opportunity to
respond.
Accordingly, we enclose by way of service the Claim Form, Grounds, evidence and
supporting documentation for the claim in each jurisdiction. We will formally serve
the sealed copies of the Claim Forms from the Administrative Court and Subregistry of the Supreme Court of BIOT once we have received these. Your client
will then have 21 days to consider his position and respond.
Finally, we also enclose a Notice of Funding of the Case (N251) in respect of the
BIOT proceedings which are being brought by the Claimant under a Conditional
Fee Agreements (as legal aid funding is not available in the jurisdiction). The
proceedings in the High Court of England & Wales are being brought with the
benefit of legal aid and formal notice will be served once the substantive certificate
is received from the Legal Services Commission.
Please call Jamie Beagent or Richard Stein if you have any queries.
Yours faithfully,
Leigh Day & Co
Encs.
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