'A national disgrace'

The passage of the Rwanda Bill late last night, after a parliamentary showdown ended between the Commons and the Lords, has been met with condemnation and outrage by a number of human rights groups.

Rishi Sunak’s emergency Rwanda Bill finally passed, with the Prime Minister saying that the first flights removing asylum seekers who arrive illegally to the UK to the east African country are due to take off in 10-12 weeks time.

Sunak’s Safety of Rwanda Bill, which forms a key part of his plan to stop small boat crossings across the channel, has faced a number of legal setbacks, after the Supreme Court ruled last year that it could lead to human rights breaches. Sunak has brought forward emergency legislation, in a bid to force the policy through, compelling judges to treat Rwanda as a safe country and giving ministers the powers to disregard sections of the Human Rights Act.

Forcing courts to treat Rwanda as a safe country and to disregard evidence to the contrary, while also ignoring the UK’s commitments to human rights laws has caused major concern.

The legislation orders the courts to ignore key sections of the Human Rights Act in an attempt to sidestep the Supreme Court’s existing judgment. It also orders the courts to ignore other British laws or international rules – such as the international Refugee Convention – that stand in the way of deportations to Rwanda.

Reacting to the passage of the legislation, Amnesty International called it a ‘national disgrace’.

It said in a statement: “The UK parliament has passed a bill that takes a hatchet to international legal protections for some of the most vulnerable people in the world and it is a matter of national disgrace that our political establishment has let this bill pass.

“The bill is built on a deeply authoritarian notion attacking one of the most basic roles played by the courts – the ability to look at evidence, decide on the facts of a case and apply the law accordingly. It’s absurd that the courts are forced to treat Rwanda as a ‘safe country’ and forbidden from considering all evidence to the contrary.

“Switching off human rights protections for people who the Government thinks it can gain political capital from attacking sets an extremely dangerous precedent.”

Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, said the passage of the bill was an Orwellian Act which will simply exacerbate chaos in the asylum system.

He continued: “Even on the Government’s best-case scenario, the Rwanda scheme will remove no more than 5,000 people a year out of the tens of thousands of people shut out of the asylum system. Inexplicably, the Government would rather pay to look after them indefinitely than simply grant them a fair hearing on UK soil to decide who can settle here. “What’s more, the Government has never been able to produce any evidence that the Rwanda scheme will deter refugees coming to the UK. The Prime Minister reportedly believed the ‘deterrent won’t work’ when he was Chancellor.”

The Council of Europe’s human rights watchdog has also condemned Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda scheme, saying it raises “major issues about the human rights of asylum seekers and the rule of law”.

The body’s human rights commissioner, Michael O’Flaherty, was cited in the Guardian warning that the UK was prohibited from subjecting, even indirectly, people to “refoulement” – the act of forcing a refugee or asylum seeker to a country or territory where he or she is likely to face persecution – including under article 3 of the European convention on human rights, under the refugee convention, and under “a range of other international instruments”.

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward

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