Emergency Rwanda bill: government should 'prepare for choppy waters' in parliament and court

Lawyers have warned the government to expect legal challenges over emergency legislation that would allow its Rwanda removals policy to go ahead.

After signing a new UK-Rwanda treaty on Tuesday, yesterday the government published the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill. However, on the first page of the bill, home secretary James Cleverly MP says he cannot state that the bill is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.

The bill requires decision-makers to ‘conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country’. It disapplies certain provisions of the Human Rights Act. However, courts can delay removal if an individual person faces a ‘real, imminent or foreseeable’ risk of serious harm being removed to Rwanda.

The emergency legislation has unsurprisingly alarmed lawyers given last month’s Supreme Court ruling.

Law Society president Nick Emmerson said: ‘The UK government is seeking to overturn an evidence-based finding of fact by the Supreme Court and shield itself from accountability under both domestic and international law through this legislation. For the second time this year and by its own admission, the government is unable to guarantee the bill will be compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.'

Bar chair Nick Vineall KC warned that the bill will be challenged in court. ‘If the government had wished to avoid legal challenges and had also had a high degree of confidence that Rwanda, in fact, is - and will continue to be - a safe place, it seems unlikely that it would have chosen to introduce a bill in this form,’ he said.

Former treasury solicitor Jonathan Jones KC predicted 'further choppy waters' in parliament and court.

He said: ‘The bill can’t rule out claimants going to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which won’t be bound by the new treaty or by UK domestic legislation. The bill does however say that ministers can ignore interim measures of the Strasbourg court. So that could get messy. There’s other fun stuff about parliament declaring itself to be sovereign and all that. So prepare for further choppy waters in both parliament and the courts.’

Lee Marsons, a senior researcher at Public Law Project, said the Supreme Court made clear that making Rwanda ‘safe’ requires structural and cultural change within the country's judicial system. ‘It is highly unlikely that this has happened in less than one month – meaning that there remains a real risk that people will be harmed,’ Marsons said.

This article is now closed for comment.