Lawyers appear to be in the line of fire over a legal challenge to stop the home secretary removing asylum seekers to Rwanda next week.

The Public and Commercial Services Union, Care4Calais, which supports refugees in Northern France, and Detention Action, which supports people in immigration detention, announced yesterday that they have lodged judicial review proceedings over the Home Office’s ‘unlawful’ Rwanda removals policy. They are also seeking an injunction over the first scheduled flight next Tuesday.

Despite the legal challenges being brought by a trade union and two charities, along with four asylum seekers facing removal next week, some of today’s media headlines focus on the lawyers.

The claimants are being represented by Duncan Lewis Solicitors.

The Daily Mail’s front page headline states: ‘Lawyers set to ground first Rwanda flight’. The website Guido Fawkes carries the headline: ‘Labour’s favourite law firm tries to injunct whole Rwanda flight.’

Home secretary Priti Patel has predicted that she would face legal challenges to her ‘Migration and Economic Development Partnership’ with Rwanda. Announcing earlier this month that formal removal direction letters had been issued, she said: ‘Today’s announcement is another critical step towards delivering that partnership and, while we know attempts will now be made to frustrate the process and delay removals, I will not be deterred and remain fully committed to delivering what the British public expect.’

The High Court is expected to hear the injunction application tomorrow.

 

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