UK’s Rwanda asylum seeker deportation plan unlawful, court rules

London, Jun 29 (EFE).- The London Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday that the United Kingdom’s government’s plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda were unlawful because it cannot be considered a “safe third country.”

The High Court in December rejected a legal challenge brought by asylum seekers and several NGOs against the controversial plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda while their claims are processed, as part of the Conservative government’s bid to put off migrants from attempting to cross the channel to reach the UK.

But on Thursday two of three judges on the Court of Appeal ruled in favor of the asylum seekers and found the East African country was not a safe destination for the migrants.

“The result is that the High Court’s decision that Rwanda was a safe third country is reversed – and that unless and until the deficiencies in its asylum processes are corrected removal of asylum-seekers to Rwanda will be unlawful,” Lord Burnett, the Lord Chief Justice, told the court.

Burnett added that from the panel of three judges two, Geoffrey Vos and Nicholas Underhill, concluded that inadequacies of the Rwandan system pose a “real risk” that asylum claims are not processed properly and potential refugees are repatriated to their countries of origin.

The judge added that the ruling “implies no view whatever about the political merits or otherwise of the Rwanda policy.”

“Those are entirely a matter for the government, on which the court has nothing to say,” Burnett said.

Interior Minister, Suella Braverman, who will appear later in the House of Commons, is expected to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court in the coming days.

The deal to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda and process claims there rather than in the UK was first struck by the Conservative Party government’s former home secretary Priti Patel in April 2022 and was kept in place by her successor Braverman.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak has made clamping down on irregular immigration to the UK one of his policy priorities.EFE

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