Suella Braverman's dream of sending aeroplane loads of
immigrants on a one way trip to Rwanda, now lies in tatters after the Supreme
Court ruled the British government's Rwanda policy unlawful yesterday.
The proposal to deport migrants who arrive illegally into the
UK, some 4,000 miles to Rwanda, in east Africa, was first announced by Boris
Johnson in April 2022. The policy was meant to deter people from crossing the
English Channel in small boats or in the back of lorries, but it hasn't deterred.
The British government said that anyone who entered the UK illegally after 1
January 2022, could be sent to Rwanda with no limit on numbers. The government
said that when in Rwanda, their asylum claims would be assessed and if
successful they could remain in Rwanda or apply for asylum in another country,
but not Britain. If they were unsuccessful, they would be returned to the
country of their origin from which they had fled.
While some migrants such as unaccompanied asylum seeking
children, asylum seekers from Rwanda, the disabled, pregnant women, and those
with sexual issues, are exempt, those eligible for a one way trip to Rwanda are
migrants who had failed to claim asylum in the first safe country they have
entered and those deemed to have tried to enter the UK by dangerous means.
Migrants from Rwanda are exempt because the British government doesn't consider
it a safe country in which to return them but nevertheless, considers Rwanda a
safe country for other refugees. However, the government's main target turned
out to be young single men.
Some critics immediately denounced the Rwanda plan has
unlawful, unworkable, and a political stunt by the Tory government. The Rwanda
scheme has already cost the British taxpayer £140 million and yet not one
migrant has been deported to Rwanda.
For the last 18 months, the British government have been
embroiled in costly legal actions that seek to challenge the legality of the
plan under international law. In June 2022, the first flight to Rwanda was
halted after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) examined the case of a
54-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker who crossed the Channel in a boat. The ECHR
said they were granting an interim measure and told the British government that
the applicant should not be removed to Rwanda until three weeks after the
delivery of the final domestic decision on his ongoing judicial review.
Although the ECHR didn't rule on whether the policy or relocations were
unlawful, the interim measure was issued because it was felt there was an
"imminent risk of irreparable harm"
to the Iraqi national who is believed to have suffered torture. It also opened
the door to other legal challenges.
In December 2022, the High Court ruled that the government's
plan to deport migrants to Rwanda was lawful in principle. However, the court
didn't make a determination on whether Rwanda was a safe country to deport
migrants to. It simply considered whether the Home Secretary had made a lawful
decision.
By a majority decision the Court of Appeal, found that there
was a real risk of asylum claims receiving inadequate consideration in Rwanda
and a consequent risk of claims being refused and asylum seekers with valid
claims being returned to their country of origin where they might suffer
persecution, which is known as 'refoulement',
which breaches the ECHR and the Refugee Convention. The court also ruled that
Rwanda is not a "safe third country."
The British government appealed against this decision.
The Supreme Court ruled that Rwanda is not a safe country and
that it would be unlawful for refugees to be removed there. The court declared
that Rwanda is widely acknowledged to have a poor human rights record and is in
breach of numerous treaty commitments it has made. It noted that the courts in
Rwanda don't act as an effective check on government behaviour and there is no
real judicial independence. The Supreme Court said that Rwanda had breached the
terms of a previous asylum deal it had entered into with Israel.
Although Rishi Sunak has said that his Conservative government
will press ahead with the Rwanda plan in spite of the Supreme Court ruling, and
have said that Britain might leave the ECHR, no-one credible, thinks the Rwanda
plan is practical or that it deters significant numbers of refugees. What are
the likely costs of detaining tens of thousands of refugees in detention camps
and then flying them to Rwanda? The Home Office say it costs £169,000 to send
one asylum seeker to Rwanda. The chartered Boeing 767 Rwanda asylum flight that
had to be cancelled in June 2022 because of a legal challenge, cost an
estimated £500,000. In 2022, the British
government managed to remove around 500 failed asylum seekers. And how many
refugees can Rwanda really take? In reality, the Rwanda scheme, is likely to
apply to probably a few hundred individuals.
Most countries recognise that something has to be done about
the issue of refugees and asylum seekers, but the British government's policy
of deterrence, isn't really working. The country needs to speed up the process
of dealing with the backlog of asylum claims and ensure that the process is
quicker and less complex.
While Suella Braverman talked about England being invaded by
asylum seekers, the UK actually receives far fewer refugees than other
countries in Europe or elsewhere. The Supreme Court judgement will prevent the
UK government from lawfully removing anyone to Rwanda based on the evidence as
it currently stands.
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