The UK government’s plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda have been met with resistance from legal experts due to the potential for an explosive fight with both the Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights. Last month, the UK’s Supreme Court ruled that Rwanda was not a safe country for asylum seekers due to its deeply flawed asylum system. However, the government’s new legislation aims to declare Rwanda “conclusively” safe and to ban British judges from ever stating the country is not. This move prevents the courts from considering documented evidence about injustices in Rwanda’s asylum system, even in the event of civil war-like in 1994.
The UK government’s plan also orders British judges and courts to ignore the sections of the Human Rights Act that set out how they should interpret safeguards set out in the European Convention of Human Rights. This includes the right not to be tortured or the right to fair hearing before the court. The plan also prevents judges from considering the Refugee Convention or the United Nations’ ban on torture.
While the UK has entered into these laws to set a global example for others to follow, government critics believe that the new law allows it to pick and choose when it adheres to such global rules. This has led respected legal experts, such as Professor Mark Elliott of Cambridge University, to term the government’s actions as an “astounding level of hypocrisy”.
Despite the UK government’s new legislation, legal experts predict that it will face many court battles if it ignores international laws and institutionalized rights. The Supreme Court cannot strike down primary legislation, but it has the power to make a “Declaration of Incompatibility” that says an Act of Parliament should be rethought because it is incompatible with the basic European Convention of Human Rights safeguards. If a government still pressed ahead with flights, claimants would then try to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights. These two massive obstacles stand in the way of the UK government’s plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda becoming a reality. Firstly, they need to get the bill through Parliament, and secondly, some of the best legal minds in the UK have fought the government over Rwanda. The plan could become so mired in challenges in court that it never reaches a final judgment
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