The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has reacted to the defeat in the UK Supreme Court for his policy on illegal immigrants by pledging to introduce legislation which would make Rwanda a “safe country.”
PM Wants to end Legal ‘Merry-go-Round’
Mr. Sunak said there was a “need to end the merry-go-round” whereby the government’s policy was overturned by judges.He told a press conference in Downing Street: “I’m also announcing today that we will take the extraordinary step of introducing emergency legislation. This will enable Parliament to confirm that with our new treaty, Rwanda is safe.”
Lawyers representing people facing deportation to the African nation had argued Rwanda was an, “authoritarian, one-party state” with a “woefully deficient” asylum system.
Lord Reed, the president of the Supreme Court, said the “legal test” was whether there were “substantial grounds” for believing asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would be at “real risk” of being sent back to the countries they came from where they originated and where they might face “ill treatment.”
Lord Reed, sitting with Lord Hodge, Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lord Briggs and Lord Sales, said there was a risk that genuine asylum seekers would be sent back to the country from where they had fled by Rwanda.
The Supreme Court justices said there was, “evidence of a culture within Rwanda of, at best, inadequate understanding of Rwanda’s obligations under the (UN) refugee convention.”
But Mr. Sunak said the legislation which he proposed to put before Parliament would, “make clear that we will bring back anyone if ordered to do so by a court.”
Asked by journalists when the first deportation flight to Kigali would take off, he said he was aiming for “the spring.”
Mr. Sunak has to call a general election by Jan. 2025 at the latest and he clearly wants to deliver the Rwanda policy before voters go to the polls.
Sunak Plan is ‘Quite Extraordinary’
But Lord Sumption, a former Supreme Court judge who sits in the House of Lords, described the government’s plan of using a law to declare Rwanda as safe as, “constitutionally really quite extraordinary.”Lord Sumption told the BBC Mr. Sunak’s Rwanda legislation was, “profoundly discreditable” and would, “effectively overrule a decision on the facts, on the evidence, by the highest court in the land.”
He said the government’s plan, “won’t work internationally“ and would, ”still be a breach of the government’s international law obligations.”
But, referring to Lord Sumption’s opinion, Mr. Cleverly told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme: “Find me two lawyers and I will give you three opinions. Lawyers argue all the time, that’s literally what they do. I have very eminent lawyers who take a different view.”
Mr. Cleverly said: “We have been working Rwandans to beef up, to strengthen, to professionalise and enhance their professional institutions, we’ve been doing this throughout this last year. The Supreme Court is only able to look at the facts as presented to the appeal court, which was 15 months ago, and we have not wasted the intervening months. We have been working extensively with the Rwandans on this very issue.”
“So we are confident that the treaty, the legally-binding treaty which is binding on both countries, will be robust, will address the issues raised by the Supreme Court – because we have been working on it for over a year,” he added.
