Salima is a Director of the firm and jointly leads the public law department.  She is a public law specialist with extensive experience advising and representing individuals, NGOs, unions, charities and other organisations in a wide range of public law matters.  She also regularly acts in civil claims for damages. 

Salima’s cases 

Salima is an expert in judicial review and civil damages claims and has acted in a wide range of cases including those arising in the immigration, criminal justice, information law contexts.  Examples of Salima’s cases are set out below. 

Migrants rights: 

• Salima leads the firm’s group civil claims against the Home Office, including in relation to the unlawful seizure of mobile phones and belongings of small boat arrivals, and the detention of clients at Manston. 

• Between 2021 and 2024 Salima led the work of a team acting for a number of Afghan citizens whose lives were in danger following the Taliban takeover of the Afghan government in 2021 (as a consequence of them having assisted the UK at the time when the UK led operations in Helmand).  The team prepared applications under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Programme (ARAP) and subsequently challenged the UK Government’s delays in transferring our clients to the UK. 

• Between 2014 and 2018 Salima acted in a number of applications for judicial review arising from the Home Secretary’s false accusations against foreign students of cheating in English language tests for visas (known as the ‘TOEIC scandal’) including: R (Abu Gazi) v SSHD [2015] UKUT 327 (IAC) on the availability of an in-country right of appeal to challenge the allegations; Majumder and Qadir v SSHD [2016] EWCA Civ 1167 on the sufficiency of the Home Office evidence in appeal cases; R (Mohammad Mohibullah) v SSHD [2016] UKUT 561 in the Upper Tribunal on the lawfulness of the Secretary of State’s actions in bringing about the student’s dismissal from their course for reason of the allegation (and thereby circumventing the usual appeal rights); R (Khan and others) v SSHD [2018] EWCA Civ 1684 on the applicability of the outcome in the Ahsan test case to those without a right of appeal out of country (due to amendments made to the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 which removed all rights of appeal from Tier 4 students); and R (Rahman and others) v SSHD [2018] EWCA Civ 1572 on costs TOEIC judicial review cases settled by the SSHD; and between 2020 and 2024 she acted in civil damages claims against the Secretary of State for the Home Department.  

• Salima has acted in a range of judicial review and civil damages claims against the Home Office, including in relation to immigration detention and conditions of leave to remain.  

Criminal justice: 

• LXP v The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales [2023] EWHC 2824 (Admin) acting for a journalist, LXP, in a case concerning whether PACE journalistic protections apply to materials that were suspected of having been stolen and the balancing of the public interest in criminal investigations with Article 10 ECHR.   

• R (P, G and W) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] UKSC 3 acting for Unlock (a charity for people with criminal records) in an intervention in the Supreme Court in a case concerning the filtering regime that applies to cautions. 

• Salima regularly advises individuals in relation to criminal records and other issues arising in the criminal justice context and has represented clients claiming damages arising from mistakes on DBS certificates and in relation to delayed release from custody. 

Information and privacy law: 

• Salima has acted in a number of civil claims for individuals arising from the unlawful sharing of their personal data and the sharing of inaccurate personal data, for example a claim against the DBS by a nurse whose DBS certificate contained an erroneous conviction, and a claim against a local authority which had inadvertently shared a client’s new address with a former partner.  

Other public law and regulatory: 

• Salima supervised the team at Global Legal Action Network who acted in R (on the application of World Uyghur Congress) v National Crime Agency [2024] concerning the susceptibility of goods imported from Xinjiang to investigations under the Proceedings of Crime Act. 

• Salima has advised charities and NGOs in relation to funding decisions and regulatory obligations. 

• Salima has advised law firms in relation to regulatory action taken by the Legal Aid Agency and in respect of the award of contracts to deliver services, and was part of the team which challenged the LAA’s crime competitive tendering exercise in 2015.   

Recommendations 

Salima is recommended in Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners.   

Legal 500: https://www.legal500.com/firms/336-bindmans-llp/r-england/lawyers/838828-salima-budhani  

Salima is recommended as a Next Generation Partner in Administrative and Public Law as well as Civil Liberties and Human Rights.  

Chambers and Partners: https://chambers.com/law-firm/gold-jennings-uk-1:142261  

Salima is recommended in Band 3 in Chambers and Partners, Administrative and Public Law: Traditional Claimant. 

Salima joined the firm as a director in May 2024 from Bindmans LLP, where she had been a partner in the Public Law team, having qualified as a solicitor in 2010. 

Prior to studying law, Salima studied psychology, in connection with which she spent three years in the US at the National Institutes of Mental Health. 

Salima is an expert in judicial review and civil damages claims and has acted in a wide range of cases including those arising in the immigration, criminal justice, information law contexts.  Examples of Salima’s cases are set out below.

Migrants rights:   

• Between 2021 and 2024 Salima led the work of a team acting for a number of Afghan citizens whose lives were in danger following the Taliban takeover of the Afghan government in 2021 (as a consequence of them having assisted the UK at the time when the UK led operations in Helmand).  The team prepared applications under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Programme (ARAP) and subsequently challenged the UK Government’s delays in transferring our clients to the UK. 

• Between 2014 and 2018 Salima acted in a number of applications for judicial review arising from the Home Secretary’s false accusations against foreign students of cheating in English language tests for visas (known as the ‘TOEIC scandal’) including: R (Abu Gazi) v SSHD [2015] UKUT 327 (IAC) on the availability of an in-country right of appeal to challenge the allegations; Majumder and Qadir v SSHD [2016] EWCA Civ 1167 on the sufficiency of the Home Office evidence in appeal cases; R (Mohammad Mohibullah) v SSHD [2016] UKUT 561 in the Upper Tribunal on the lawfulness of the Secretary of State’s actions in bringing about the student’s dismissal from their course for reason of the allegation (and thereby circumventing the usual appeal rights); R (Khan and others) v SSHD [2018] EWCA Civ 1684 on the applicability of the outcome in the Ahsan test case to those without a right of appeal out of country (due to amendments made to the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 which removed all rights of appeal from Tier 4 students); and R (Rahman and others) v SSHD [2018] EWCA Civ 1572 on costs TOEIC judicial review cases settled by the SSHD; and between 2020 and 2024 she acted in civil damages claims against the Secretary of State for the Home Department.  

Criminal justice: 

• LXP v The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales [2023] EWHC 2824 (Admin) acting for a journalist, LXP, in a case concerning whether PACE journalistic protections apply to materials that were suspected of having been stolen and the balancing of the public interest in criminal investigations with Article 10 ECHR.   

• R (P, G and W) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] UKSC 3 acting for Unlock (a charity for people with criminal records) in an intervention in the Supreme Court in a case concerning the filtering regime that applies to cautions. 

Information and privacy law: 

• Salima has acted in a number of civil claims for individuals arising from the unlawful sharing of their personal data and the sharing of inaccurate personal data, for example a claim against the DBS by a nurse whose DBS certificate contained an erroneous conviction, and a claim against a local authority which had inadvertently shared a client’s new address with a former partner.