Judges dealt another massive blow to the Con-Dem slave labour drive yesterday, ruling emergency laws to shore up the back-to-work scheme unlawful.

Ministers were forced to draft emergency legislation after its back-to-work policies, a flagship of its all-out onslaught on welfare forcing jobseekers to work for nothing or lose their benefits, were found to be legally flawed by the Court of Appeal.

The unanimous 2011 ruling decided that regulations had failed to give the unemployed enough detailed information, especially about sanctions.

Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) — which brought the case for university graduate Cait Reilly, who challenged having to work for free in Poundland, and unemployed HGV driver Jamieson Wilson, who had his jobseekers allowance stopped for six months after refusing to clean furniture unpaid — said thousands would be able to claim back their illegally stripped benefits.

Ms Reilly and fellow jobseeker Daniel Hewstone argued that the hasty new regulations were a ploy by a “cynical” government to avoid the consequences of their fatally flawed actions.

Presiding at the High Court yesterday Ms Justice Lang upheld their argument and ruled that the emergency legislation was “incompatible” with the European Convention on Human Rights.

PIL solicitor Phil Shiner said: “This case is another massive blow to this government’s flawed and tawdry attempts to make poor people on benefits work for companies, who already make massive profits, for free.

“Last year the Supreme Court told Iain Duncan Smith and the coalition government that the scheme was unlawful.

“In this case the High Court has now told the government that the attempt to introduce retrospective legislation — after the DWP had lost in the Court of Appeal — is unlawful and a breach of the Human Rights Act.

“It is a further disgraceful example of how far this government is prepared to go to flout our constitution and the rule of law.”