‘Unlawful’: Supreme Court rules against UK plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda

London: Britain’s Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the government’s contentious plan to send some asylum seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda was illegal, striking a major blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government.

The court unanimously rejected the government’s appeal against an earlier ruling that migrants could not be sent to Rwanda because it could not be considered a safe third country.

Five justices on the country’s top court said asylum-seekers would be “at real risk of ill-treatment” because they could be sent back to their home countries once they were in Rwanda.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, left, and former home secretary Suella Braverman, who was the architect of the plan. Braverman was sacked on Monday during a cabinet reshuffle.Credit: AP

Britain and Rwanda signed a deal in April 2022 to send migrants who arrive in the UK by boat across the English Channel to the East African country, where their asylum claims would be processed and, if successful, they would stay.

Sunak’s government had argued that the Rwanda policy would deter people from risking their lives crossing one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes and would break the business model of people-smuggling gangs. Opposition politicians, refugee groups and human rights organisations said the plan was unethical and unworkable.

Reading the unanimous decision, the president of the Supreme Court Robert Reed said Rwanda could not be relied on to keep promises not to mistreat asylum seekers sent from Britain.

He cited the country’s poor human rights record, including enforced disappearances and torture, and practised “refoulement” – sending migrants back to home countries where they could be at risk.

The first deportation flight was stopped at the last minute in June 2022 when the European Court of Human Rights intervened.

In December, the High Court in London ruled that the Rwanda plan was legal, but that the government must consider the individual circumstances of each case before putting anyone on a plane.

The Court of Appeal in June backed a challenge by asylum seekers from countries including Syria, Vietnam and Iran. The court ruled that the plan was unlawful because Rwanda was not a “safe third country” and there was a risk that migrants sent there would be returned to the home countries they had fled.

An inflatable craft carrying migrants crosses the English Channel.Credit: Getty

That was challenged at the Supreme Court by the government, which argued at a hearing last month that it had thoroughly assessed the risks and would ensure that Rwanda’s government abided by its agreement to protect migrants’ rights.

Much of Europe is struggling with how best to cope with migrants seeking refuge from war, violence, oppression and a warming planet that has brought devastating drought and floods. Former home secretary Suella Braverman – regarded as the architect of the plan – had argued that many asylum seekers were in fact “economic migrants”.

Sunak sacked Braverman on Monday as part of a cabinet reshuffle. In the weeks before her sacking, she described migrants as a “hurricane” headed for Britain, called homelessness a “lifestyle choice” and accused police of being too lenient with pro-Palestinian protesters.

The UK receives fewer asylum seekers than many European nations, including Germany, France and Italy. Thousands of migrants from around the world travel to northern France each year in the hope of crossing the Channel. Sunak had pledged to “stop the boats” as part of an Australian-style policy.

More than 27,300 migrants have crossed the Channel this year, with the 2023 total on track to be fewer than the 46,000 who made the journey in 2022. The government says that shows its tough approach is working, though others cite factors including the weather.

Braverman had also called for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights and its court if the Rwanda plan was blocked.

The UK government had said it aimed to strike similar deportation deals with other countries if the Rwanda plan succeeded. It argued several other European countries were considering similar ideas, with the European Union exploring setting up processing centres on the bloc’s borders to screen people as they arrive.

Italy recently reached a deal with Albania for the Balkan country to temporarily house and process some of the thousands of migrants who reach Italian shores. Unlike the UK plan, however, the journey would not be one way. Successful asylum-seekers would get to start new lives in Italy, not Albania.

Reuters, AP

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