Rwanda will treat asylum seekers properly because it would be reputationally embarassing for the UK if they didn’t, the Home Office has told the Supreme Court.
The Home Office is challenging a Court of Appeal ruling from June that the multimillion-pound deal – which would see asylum seekers deported to the east African nation – was unlawful.
At the start of the three-day hearing on Monday, Sir James Eadie KC, for the Home Office, told the UK’s highest court that the policy to remove people to “a country less attractive” than the UK, “but nevertheless safe”, is lawful.
Sir James insisted that, despite evidence presented by the UNHCR to the contrary, the Rwandan government would adhere to assurances made to the UK that they will process asylum seekers properly.
He told the Supreme Court: “The practical incentives to compliance are very powerful”.
He said “Rwanda knows full well the UK expects compliance,” adding that: “The reputational consequences of non compliance would be very serious for everyone.”
Sir James added that there were “pretty strong financial incentives” included in the agreement that would encourage Rwanda to treat asylum seekers properly. He also said that an extensive monitoring scheme had been set up by the UK government to oversee the decisions made by Rwanda.
“There is to be an IT tracking system; tracking each and every case going through the system,” he said. The digital system has already been in place for some months and a London team has been put in place to oversee it.
There will also be a complaints mechanism that asylum seekers will have access to and a monitoring committee will review ten per cent of the complaints made, Sir James said.
Sir James argued that Rwanda’s past track record of treatment of asylum seekers was not relevant, saying: “Even if there are concerns about ill treatment in a foreign state, it is still possible for assurances to be provided that are a break with what has occured in the past.
“What matters is the analysis of the present and the future, in light of the assurances that have been given.”
He added that “it is not necessary to establish that nothing could ever go wrong. Or even that there is no prospect of an individual case being mishandled”.
Cases are mishandled in the UK and in other European countries, such as France, but this does not mean they are not safe countries, Sir James contested.
“The appeal is, at its heart, about the judgments made by government about the future conduct of a friendly foreign state – Rwanda,” he told a panel of five justices.
The barrister said both countries are “committed” to the deal, with “very powerful” practical incentives for Rwanda to comply with the assurances given.
Sir James later referenced concerns that had been raised over the policy and Rwanda’s history, including by the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR.
The barrister continued: “Both the government and the Rwandan government were fully aware of the likely controversy of the arrangements that were made when the deal was signed.”
Sir James said: “The UK cannot possibly seek to resolve those issues. That does not mean that those concerns having been received should be ignored, quite the contrary.”
The barrister added: “Whatever debates there might have been… it is, at best, peripheral. This is a new context with a new set of detailed arrangements.”
The UNHCR, which has intervened in the legal challenges over the policy, previously said Rwanda “lacks irreducible minimum components of an accessible, reliable, fair and efficient asylum system”.
In the agency’s written submissions to the Supreme Court, Angus McCullough KC said it had “consistently expressed grave concerns” about the safety and legality of the policy.
He continued: “UNHCR maintains its unequivocal warning against the transfer of asylum seekers to Rwanda under the UK-Rwanda Arrangement.”
A key UNHCR concern is that Rwanda has a history of refoulement, the forcible return of refugees to a country where they could be subjected to persecution. They raised three cases of two Afghans and one Syrian who were denied asylum and put on flights out of Rwanda in 2022.
The UNHCR raised concerns that monitoring committees would not be able to intervene in time to halt cases like these and that the Rwandan government was discriminating against asylum seekers from the Middle East. Sir James said the UNHCR were basing their arguments on a sample size that was too small.
Several asylum seekers who were set to be deported on the first planned flight to Rwanda in June 2022— (REUTERS)
Several asylum seekers who were set to be deported on the first planned flight to Rwanda in June 2022 – which was grounded minutes before take-off following a ruling by a judge at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg – are opposing the appeal.
Raza Husain KC, for several of the asylum seekers in the case, described Rwanda at a previous hearing as “a highly autocratic repressive state” which “imprisons, tortures and murders those it considers to be its opponents”.
He said in written submissions to the Supreme Court: “The policy is an inherently difficult one to achieve lawfully.
“On the one hand, for the deterrent purpose of removal to a third country to be successful, the third country must be a sufficiently unattractive location to an asylum seeker travelling to the UK.
“On the other hand, the third country must not be unattractive because it falls short of Article 3 (the right to be free from torture) and Refugee Convention standards.”
The hearing before Lords Reed, Hodge, Lloyd-Jones, Briggs and Sales is expected to end on Wednesday, with a judgment at a later date.
