A few days ago, on 17 July 2008, the European Court of Human Rights handed down a rather hopeful judgement in the case of NA. v. the United Kingdom where it held that the applicant’s expulsion to Sri Lanka would be a violation of Article 3 of the ECHR. NA came to the UK clandestinely in 1999 and sought asylum following the numerous occasions of ill-treatment that he experienced when arrested by the army in Sri Lanka due to allegations of involvement with the Tigers. After the applicant’s successive applications for judicial review of the decision to return him to…