Leigh Day lawyers to speak at 2025 Commonwealth Law Conference in Malta

Partner and head of the Leigh Day immigration and asylum law team Jacqueline McKenzie leads the firm’s work on reparations. Her team specialises in a wide range of immigration matters, including cases representing asylum seekers and refugees.

Consultant solicitor Frances Swaine works in the immigration team alongside Jacqui, working with clients applying to the Windrush Compensation Scheme. She also set up the human rights department at Leigh Day and was previously the firm's managing partner.

Jacqui is set to present a talk on Reparatory Justice and Reparations for Transatlantic Slave Trade. A key legal voice in this arena, last year, Jacqui highlighted the need for the UK to have reparations discussions, with the enslavement of Africans during the Trans Atlantic slave trade era continuing to make an impact today.

Fran will be speaking on the topics ‘I had no choice but to flee - surely I must be welcome to seek to live here?” and ‘The misuse of migration law and does the rule of law apply on the high seas?’. Her talk will consider the disparities in decisions taken about migrants and refugees fleeing to the UK, which can appear racially driven.

The five-day conference takes place ahead of Leigh Day’s Immigration Summit on 29 April 2025 which brings together prominent lawyers, experts, organisations, and policymakers for crucial discussions on immigration law and policy across the world.

Fran and Jacqui previously attended the 2023 Commonwealth Law Conference in Goa, where they spoke on model litigant rules (how the Government ought to behave when someone is bringing a legal claim against them) and delivered a paper on refugee rights respectively.

Frances Swaine said:

“I am very keen to address the limbo that many of our clients feel when their homes are not safe, and how they are also not made to feel welcome or safe when seeking asylum.

"The misuse of migrant law further strips individuals seeking safety and new opportunities of basic rights. Where they should be greeted with compassion, they instead face hostility and punishment.”

Jacqueline McKenzie said:

“There has been a discourse in the media where people have ignorantly assumed that enslavement and its impacts are in the past. However, its legacy remains to be felt deeply across nations.

“We must address the present-day impact of enslavement and understand the systematic repercussions that it has had, such as inequalities in health outcomes and poverty. By opening a dialogue on the matter, we can commit to healing these historical wounds.”