“What are the individual’s expectations about the outcome of the case? Are there factors such as an outstanding appeal, an application for judicial review or representations which afford incentive to keep in touch?”354 The policy sets out the frequency with which detention has to be reviewed and the grade of official who must authorize detention and carry out the review.355 The failure to undertake these reviews can render the detention unlawful but does not necessarily give rise to a claim for anything more than nominal damages if, on examination, the detainee would have been detained if a review had taken place.356 However, if an official of the wrong grade undertakes the review, the detention is not unlawful.357 Evaluation of the legal protection for stateless persons against arbitrary detention in the UK Current UK domestic law does not contain any protections that are designed to specifically protect stateless persons against the risk of arbitrary detention. Furthermore, the research has not found any references to a detainee’s statelessness being identified as a relevant consideration or “juridically relevant fact”358 in the assessment of the lawfulness of a decision to detain. In addition, there is no time limit on the period of immigration detention in UK law. Time limits have been identified as a valuable protection for stateless persons at risk of arbitrary detention and are reflected in the domestic law of a number of EU member states as well as EU legislation.359 The research identified that some participants may have been detained under an unpublished policy which, in contrast to the Secretary of State’s published policy, created a presumption of detention for all former foreign national prisoners subject to exceptions on compassionate grounds. The Supreme Court ruled that detention under the unpublished policy was unlawful.360 Indeed such a policy would have had a disproportionate impact on stateless and “unreturnable” persons as many, in theory, could have benefited from the provisions of the published policy on the basis of the poor prospects that existed of them departing from the UK. This unpublished policy is, however, no longer applied and it is important to note that both the Hardial Singh principles and the Secretary of State’s policy on immigration detention provide stateless and “unreturnable” persons with valuable protections. In many ways the provisions of the current policies are at odds with the prevalence and length of immigration detention experienced by participants. If accurately and effectively applied, these protections would provide substantial, although not sufficient, guarantees against the risk of the arbitrary detention of stateless persons. However, the qualitative data indicates that that is not the case. Consideration should therefore be given to forthcoming guidelines on the detention of stateless persons which, at time of writing, will soon be published by the Equal Rights Trust, 354 Ibid. 355 Ibid., Section 55.8. 356 SK (Zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, op.cit. 357 Ibid., para. 60. 358 Cf. By analogy with states that do not have a statelessness determination procedure see UNHCR, Geneva Summary conclusions, para. 30. 359 UNHCR, Back to Basics: The Right to Liberty and Security of Person and ‘Alternatives to Detention’ of Refugees, Asylum-Seekers, Stateless Persons and Other Migrants, op.cit., pp 23-24; the Equal Rights Trust, Unravelling Anomaly: Detention, Discrimination and Protection Needs of Stateless Persons, July 2010, available at: www.equalrightstrust.org/ertdocumentbank/UNRAVELLING%20 ANOMALY%20small%20file.pdf; and London Detainee Support Group, Detained Lives, January 2009, available at: www.detainedlives.org/wp-content/uploads/detainedlives.pdf 360 Lumba (WL) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, op. cit. paras. 16 and 17. in the United Kingdom 109