The Government's plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda are lawful, the High Court has ruled. Senior judges have rejected arguments that the plans to send asylum seekers to east Africa were unlawful.
Since the Government first announced the plans, several challenges were brought against the proposals, which was first announced by then-home secretary Priti Patel in April. The first flight was expected to take off on June 14 but was grounded due to objections against individual removals and the policy as a whole.
Lord Justice Lewis, sitting with Mr Justice Swift, has now dismissed the challenges against the policy as a whole. However, he had ruled in favour of eight asylum seekers, after finding the Government had acted wrongly in their individual cases.
The hearing lasted five days in September and saw lawyers for several asylum seekers, the Public and Commercial Services Union and the charities Care4Calais and Detention action argue that the plans were unlawful. They argued the plans are unlawful and that Rwanda “tortures and murders those it considers to be its opponents”.
UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) also told the court that Rwanda “lacks irreducible minimum components of an accessible, reliable, fair and efficient asylum system” and that the policy would lead to a serious risk of breaches of the Refugee Convention. A second hearing in October saw lawyers for the charity Asylum Aid challenge the policy. It argued the procedure was "Seriously unfair" and unlawful. It said asylum seekers were at risk of being removed from the country without access to legal advice.
The Home Office defended the claims, with lawyers arguing the memorandum of understanding agreed between the UK and Rwanda provides assurances that ensure everyone sent there will have a “safe and effective” refugee status determination procedure. People deported to Rwanda will be provided with “adequate accommodation”, food, free medical assistance, education, language and professional development training and “integration programmes”, judges were told, as part of plans that have cost at least £120million.
