Muhunthan Paramesvaran

Muhunthan is a partner at Wilsons Solicitors LLP, specialising in immigration, Asylum  and human rights law. His work covers a variety of elements from skilled worker visa applications to major asylum cases as well as challenges to government policies. Passionate about justice and mentoring others, he has built a career defined by resilience and a commitment to supporting the vulnerable.

Immigration and human rights law is a very politically sensitive area now. How does that affect your working life?

It can be difficult. We are regularly attacked in the media by politicians, including the Prime Minister, who as a former senior lawyer working in human rights should obviously know better. It can be a very difficult and febrile environment to work in. You have to be emotionally resilient to a lot of outside noise.

The thing is, we are not political in that sense. As lawyers, we have to work in the best interests of our clients – we shouldn’t be associated with our clients’ specific causes. We have professional and ethical obligations to abide by: we have duties to the court, to our opponent – often the Home Office – and to our client. We have an overarching  duty to protect the rule of law.

There is a similar pattern across Europe, though. In Germany a lawyer was prosecuted simply for representing his client.

Is that unusual?

It’s quite extreme. Thankfully we haven’t quite got to that stage in the UK. To be prosecuted for ‘aiding and abetting’ illegal migration just for presenting someone’s case. There wasn’t any suggestion he was presenting anything untrue or false. It’s a  scary time when lawyers are being attacked simply for doing their jobs.

What did the prime minister say? Did he have a genuine legal point?

It was during PMQs – he criticised a judge who had made an independent decision on a family reunion case, a family from Gaza. A judge had made a decision to allow the case. Kemi Badenoch stood up to criticise the decisions and the PM said he agreed with her and he was going to try and  close the loophole. But there is no loophole.

To say that a judge was wrong at PMQs, televised all over the world, when judges are hounded by the press… judges should not be in the firing line in this way. They are getting hate mail, being doorstepped, their families are being contacted in certain cases. I haven’t had that – but our firm has received death threats in the post. Not specific individuals but messages saying, ‘We know what you’re doing and we’re out to get you,” that sort of thing.

If you could address everyone who’s misinformed on this subject, what would you like to tell them?

Firstly, the conflation of asylum and immigration into the whole basket of ‘immigration’ is a problem. I do a lot of personal immigration now – work permits, students, businesses looking to employ workers from abroad. All that legal migration is conflated with asylum and human rights work. But people need to be able to distinguish between the two.

It should be obvious… but the media and politicians very rarely spell out that distinction. You never really hear the positive case for migration in terms of the economy and our public services. The government have just put out a white paper planning to clamp down even more on legal migration. Obviously, the government has to reflect the public will. We don’t have a problem with that. But we do have a problem with our colleagues being attacked simply for doing their jobs.

I’m pretty sure many people I meet, when I tell them what I do would think all my work is related to people who arrive in small boats and form a judgment based on that misapprension.

But you have sometimes acted for people who have arrived in small boats?

Yes, they are entitled to a fair hearing from the Home Office and  to have their cases heard. We regularly have cases in the Supreme Court. We had cases there relating to the Rwanda policy, which proved successful for our clients and had wider implications for Asylum law in the UK.   The government was defeated and that policy was deemed to be unlawful and subsequently abandoned.

What is the jigsaw of activities you and your team are doing on any one case?

Every case is different. For example, if I was working for a company trying to get a skilled worker to come and work for them, that would be different to an asylum case. But the skillset is very similar. In an asylum case, you’re taking the client’s instructions; considering what treatment they suffered In their home country; you’re looking at objective up-to-date research on that country. You’re presenting a case to the Home Office; taking statements often with the help of interpreters; referring them to third party support, counselling maybe. A lot of victims of trauma, torture, suffering from PTSD, severe depression… we evidence that via instructing experts.

Presumably the Foreign Office keeps data on conditions in other countries. Does that sometimes conflict with the Home Office’s stance on asylum seekers?

Yes, they are two separate organs of the government. Often the Foreign Office will be issuing a Do Not Travel order to British citizens and saying a particular place is very dangerous. Then you’re acting for a client from that country and the Home Office says it’s a pretty safe place, really! But they have different remits – the Home Office generally wants to fight every case, with certain exceptions: Syrian and Ukraine refugees have had a set programme, a concessionary policy around those seismic situations.

We heard from another interviewee in this series that the legal system is generally struggling at the moment. Is that something you recognise too?

Yes. There are chronic delays in the whole justice system and lots of people having to present their own case because they can’t get legal aid to have a lawyer. No legal aid lawyer has the capacity to take all the cases that need them. They have to be selective or go bust. So that has a knock-on effect on the justice system. Delays – hearings don’t get heard. The settlement for the system needs a massive injection of funding to get back up to speed.

Access to law – access to justice – is in crisis. Not just in my field but we have a family law department as well, for people who have issues around children, or children in care. It’s essential work in any civilised society, that you need lawyers to do this. But law is struggling for funding across the board.

In such a stressful, high-stakes line of work, can it ever be enjoyable?

When you get good results, you get a little boost. Training the next generation of lawyers is incredibly satisfying, seeing people progress from trainees to case workers to become solicitors. That’s incredibly satisfying. Seeing the faces of your clients when they get the outcome they want – how incredibly humble and grateful they are for what you’ve done. It’s a massive change in their life to be granted sanctuary or to be reunited with their partner in a country where being gay is legal. It’s life-changing and to see those outcomes – after  25 years I  still feel privileged to be part of that.

There have been so many cases that stick in my mind. Recently I had an outcome where an autistic child from Nepal had been separated from her parents – one was settled here and one was on a temporary Visa- because of the way the immigration rules work the child was refused so we had to appeal and go to court,  we won and it was amazing. We had a compelling case and it was successful. When they went back to get her and sent me a photo of them all together just beaming with happiness and that was great.

When did you first think of going into law?

Very late. Even after I had graduated in English Literature at Sussex, I still didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I did a law conversion course – I thought it would play to my strengths in wanting to do something both creative and technical. That’s what the law is – you have to be creative but you are also dealing with laws that are inflexible and rigid. So it uses both sides of your brain.

After the law conversion course, I got a job at this firm, just an admin job, not even directly related to law. It was at the company’s main office near the Tottenham Hotspur stadium – I’ve supported Spurs all my life, so that seemed a good fit! It was an entry level job and I slowly got exposed to this kind of work and realised I night be able to do it myself. I’ve been with the same company ever since, and now I’m a partner.

So, law has been a perfect application for your skills and interests?

I had had a second interview at Ernst-Young and got rejected and I wake up every morning thankful for that! I was just thinking, ‘Could I be an accountant?’ I just needed a job.

Does it fulfil some of the hankering people get to become a detective after watching TV detective shows?

Yes – it’s piecing together a story. Investigation, Research. Clues. And I quite like, when it gets to it, the adversarial nature of it and that our opponent is always the government in those cases. So it’s always David vs Goliath – we are always representing the individual and we’re going to court against big government department with lots of resources. People always forget that. When they denigrate lawyers in our field, they tend to forget that if the Home Office made the right decision in the first place we wouldn’t even be going to court for these cases – we’d save the public purse millions by making better decisions in the first place. So I like the idea of the radical, anti-establishment lawyer.

What personal qualities have helped you to become successful in this field? What are you looking for when you recruit?

The capacity to learn; to be calm under pressure. To be passionate about the law and the subject – we look for relevant experience and volunteering, to demonstrate that someone has a genuine interest in the field. But a lot of the core skills are transferable across a lot of different sectors – an eye for detail, empathy, compassion…

How did you come to be at City of London School?

I applied to a few different schools at that time but City was the one I preferred. I liked the idea of coming into London on a train every day when I was 11 years old. Maybe it wouldn’t be allowed today. My dad brought me to school for the first week and then I was on my own after that, having to find my way in.

Did you fit in and enjoy it straight away?

No – I came from a state primary school, which was completely different. One of the most tragic events that happened to me was that within a few weeks I was demoted to the class below because I was falling below the level of everyone else in my class. That was quite deflating. I’m sure the school would handle it differently now.

There weren’t many people at City from state primary schools in east London. It was quite a north London bias. It was diverse in terms of ethnicity, but not economically, I don’t think. I hesitate to say it but while there were many of us there from a minority ethnic background you might say we were from privileged minority backgrounds. So our year looked quite diverse in photos but maybe not in terms of what kind of jobs our parents did!

Did you enjoy it in the end?

Yes, it got better as I started to find my place there. I had great teachers and as I got more into sport there, I really started to enjoy it more. Some of the teachers were quite old-school – Mr Hubbard would throw board rubbers at anyone who was out of line. They were heavy. You can quote me on that! They didn’t take any nonsense. Which was good! As I grew older, heading towards GCSEs, I found out what I liked. I did English, Economics, Politics for A-Level.

Who were your best teachers?

The best ones were in the English department, I think. Mr Blanch, who passed away very recently, was my form teacher. He was a massive influence on me. Mr Dyke, whose English class I was in as well. Mr Hurst was incredible – I had him for GCSE English Just the open-minded thinking. He introduced us to Bob Dylan in one lesson. “We’re not reading this rubbish today. Let’s listen to this album.” We were about 15. I loved it straight away. And he was into Woody Allen films and would talk about them too. We’d go to the theatre and the teachers  would take us to the pub afterwards and buy you drinks, when we were 16. No-one seemed to mind.

Did you come to see the school had a certain character that was different to other schools?

There was something special about going to school in the middle of London. Seeing all the City gents going off to work… I think City maybe has more of a cultured tradition than some schools; it was a less harsh environment than a traditional public school. It was a cool school – still is, I think.

Was the focus on academic achievement or soft skills?

I think it really was both: there was an emphasis on academics. You would get pulled up if you were lazy or not trying. But at the same time, especially in the arts departments, there was a healthy disrespect for authority and the rules. I remember on one occasion I got sent home for wearing the wrong colour jacket in Sixth Form. The Headmaster saw me on my way to school and sent me home to change! I told Richard Blanch about this and he was totally furious!

You had allies in the English department. Rebellion against some of the more stupid rules was even encouraged there. ‘You’re a teenager:  that’s what you should be doing’. It’s part of the rite of passage. We never did anything too bad – but we sensed that some of our teachers were not totally on board with authority, which I loved.