The European Union (EU) directive on asylum procedures remains in force in the United Kingdom and, therefore, the deportation of immigrants to Rwanda so that the administration of the African country processes and evaluates their cases would be a practice illegal.
This groundbreaking hypothesis was defended by the legal representative of an Iraqi refugee, Richard Drabble, in the final session of the appeal trial filed before the British Supreme Court by Rishi Sunak’s Government in defense of its controversial policy of exporting foreigners who enter the country to Kigali. the island by clandestine means, especially by boats through the English Channel.
Lord Robert Reed, president of the court and the five-judge panel hearing the appeal, immediately warned that a positive interpretation of lawyer Drabble’s argument would deal a “decisive blow” to the ‘Rwanda plan’. “It would affect thousands of immigrants,” the lawyer acknowledged.
Community law, as he explained, dictates that an asylum seeker can only be transferred to a safe third State with which he or she has some connection. None of the ten individuals involved in the legal process – originally from Iran, Sudan, Syria, Vietnam and Iraq – have ties to Rwanda, according to their representatives.
A victory for the Iraqi refugee would tear down the pillar of the political strategy agreed upon by successive conservative governments to reduce the cost of irregular immigration and regain control of the borders in the post-Brexit.
Suspended flight
The European Court of Human Rights stopped the first flight bound for Kigali, in June 2022, and the partnership with the EU could ensure that no consignment of refugees is forced on board before their cases are assessed in the United Kingdom.
It was up to Community Law expert David Pannick, who contributed to the Government’s defeat in cases surrounding Brexit, to refute Drabble’s position. He rejected arguments that the Westminster Parliament did not intend to “repeal the entire body of asylum rights” when it passed the European Union Withdrawal Act 2018 and subsequent Immigration and Social Security Coordination legislation 2020. He described as “unsustainable” the perspective of his opponent, who based much of his arguments on the limited interpretation of migration as freedom of movement.
The new Illegal Migration law, ratified in July, obliges the head of the Interior to detain and expel from the United Kingdom refugees classified as “inadmissible” due to their irregular entry into the United Kingdom. The previous year it signed an agreement with Rwanda – which includes a “strong financial incentive” for the Government of Kigali around the initial 150 million euros – whose implementation collided in June with the majority ruling of the Court of Appeal, which did not consider it a safe place to send asylum seekers.
The conservative government won the first lawsuit in the divisional court in December 2022 and hopes to ratify the victory in the Supreme Court. The ruling of the highest judicial instance is expected in the next two months, according to what its president, Lord Justice Reed, announced at the close of the public hearings at his headquarters in Westminster.
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