R (on the application of Hamit Coskun) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

Iris Ferber KC and Jeremy Raizon represented Hamit Coskun at the hearing of his judicial review claim against the Home Secretary.  At the hearing on 5 February 2026 before Mr Justice Linden, Iris and Jeremy obtained an order by which the Home Secretary agreed to accommodate Mr Coskun under section 4 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, subject to various safety conditions because of repeated threats to his life – resulting from his act of protest, in burning a copy of the Koran outside the Turkish Consulate in February 2025.

The grounds for judicial review challenged as unlawful the Home Secretary’s recent reversal of a previous decision, by which she had agreed to accommodate Mr Coskun in accordance with those safety conditions.  In the new decision, the Home Secretary had then purported to withdraw her agreement to those same conditions.  Iris and Jeremy argued that the previous decision had been concluded, had been communicated to Mr Coskun, and had already been put into effect by the Home Office (who had taken some steps to locate suitable accommodation before attempting to withdraw the decision) – and therefore that the Home Secretary was functus officio and her previous decision could not now be withdrawn.

The parties reached agreement for the withdrawal of the new decision, and by the order of Mr Justice Linden made on 5 February 2026, the Home Office will now make accommodation available to Mr Coskun which complies with the safety conditions that had previously been agreed.

Iris and Jeremy worked with Sarah Waller at Osbornes Law and with the Free Speech Union to achieve this excellent result for Mr Coskun.

Daily Mail press coverage

6th Feb 2026

Iris Ferber KC

Call 2005 | Silk 2023

Jeremy Raizon

Call 2012 (South Africa); 2023 (England and Wales)