‘Civil servants have threatened ministers with legal action over concerns that senior Home Office staff could be in breach of international law if they implement the government’s Rwanda deportation bill.’
The Guardian, 12th March 2024
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘The government has suffered five further defeats in the House of Lords over its Rwanda bill.’
BBC News, 6th March 2024
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘Safe Third Country (STC) agreements involve the transfer of protection-seekers from one State to another. They take different forms, including bilateral treaties (the UK-Rwanda Treaty), political agreements (the Italy-Albania MoU) and regional mechanisms (Dublin III). They are usually justified as a means of sharing responsibility for protecting refugees and ‘managing’ access to asylum determination processes, as is the case for the Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement. In other contexts their explicit purpose is to deter and to punish.
EIN Blog, 29th February 2024
Source: www.ein.org.uk
‘Rishi Sunak’s asylum laws have introduced a “perma-backlog” of up to 55,000 people who cannot have their claims processed and risk being left indefinitely in taxpayer-funded temporary accommodation, according to a new report.’
The Guardian, 28th February 2024
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘The UK’s chief inspector of borders and immigration has called it “scandalous” that his watchdog role could be left vacant while the Rwanda scheme is introduced.’
The Guardian, 19th February 2024
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘The UK government’s controversial Rwanda legislation that deems the African country as a safe place to deport people to is fundamentally incompatible with Britain’s human rights obligations and places it in breach of international law, according to a damning parliamentary report.’
The Guardian, 12th February 2024
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘Europe’s leading anti-torture watchdog has called on the government to process asylum claims in the UK rather than sending people to Rwanda because of the risk they may be exposed to human rights abuses there.’
The Guardian, 8th February 2024
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘The UK government’s proposals to send asylum seekers arriving to the UK onto Rwanda continue to spark intense opposition.’
EIN Blog, 6th February 2024
Source: www.ein.org.uk
‘Baroness Hale revealed her “true colours” by voting against the Rwanda Bill, according to former leader of the Commons Jacob-Rees-Mogg, who yesterday called for the “politicised” Supreme Court to be emasculated.’
Law Society's Gazette, 7th February 2024
Source: www.lawgazette.co.uk
‘As the dust settles on another year, it is (just about still) time to look back over the year gone to review some of the most dramatic, legally interesting or impactful cases of the year gone by. As ever, this is only a selection of the top cases of the year, but as a whole they reveal yet another year in which the courts have been drawn into the centre of the most important social and political debates of the society in which they find themselves.’
UK Human Rights Blog, 29th January 2024
Source: ukhumanrightsblog.com
‘The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill will receive its second reading in the House of Lords on 29 January 2024, having cleared the House of Commons unamended. There are a great many problems with the Rwanda Bill, any of which might weigh with the Lords, but this blog post focuses on just one: the likelihood that, if enacted, the Bill may well trigger a constitutional crisis between the courts and Parliament. It would be a crisis that is likely to endure beyond the life of the policy embodied in the Bill. I argue here that one of the roles of the House of Lords is to act as a constitutional safeguard, a steam-valve, and, in exercise of this function under the rare circumstances that attend this Bill, it would be legitimate for the Lords to not only make and insist upon far-reaching changes to the Bill, but even to refuse to pass it altogether. This post is not concerned with the realpolitik of whether peers would in fact vote the Bill down – though I come to the point in the conclusion. It rather seeks to refute the constitutional argument that it would be illegitimate to block or make potent amendments to it.’
UK Constitutional Law Association, 26th January 2024
Source: ukconstitutionallaw.org
‘The UK government is once again navigating legal and political hurdles over its plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. The latest debate is over the emergency bill that legally declares Rwanda a safe place to send refugees (despite the supreme court ruling the opposite).’
EIN Blog, 23rd January 2024
Source: www.ein.org.uk
‘A leading lawyer who sits in the Lords has warned that Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda bill is “a step toward totalitarianism”.’
The Independent, 18th January 2024
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘Members of Parliament in the UK will on 16 and 17 January 2024 debate the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, which “gives effect to the judgement of Parliament that the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country” for asylum-seekers. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in November 2023 that Rwanda was manifestly not safe as asylum seekers sent to the country would face a real risk of ill-treatment due to insufficient guarantees against refoulement. The Bill thus aims to use law to determine a factual situation for as long as the law is in force. This blog discusses the risks inherent in creating such a “legal fiction” and how the Bill could be revised to mitigate this risk, before assessing the chances of it becoming law in the currently turbulent political context.’
EIN Blog, 16th January 2024
Source: www.ein.org.uk
‘The new Rwanda deal proposed by Rishi Sunak’s government is still “not compatible” with international refugee law, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said. The UNHCR has published its legal assessment of the bill designed to allow Britain to send asylum seekers who arrive illegally in the UK to Rwanda.’
The Independent, 16th January 2024
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘The government has admitted that Rwanda still has “issues with its human rights record” despite claims by Rishi Sunak that it is a safe country.’
The Guardian, 11th January 2024
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘Expert lawyers who have been involved in the Rwanda case – or supported the challenge to the policy – have described new legislation as potentially setting up a politically explosive fight with both the Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights.’
BBC News, 6th December 2023
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘An emergency bill published on Wednesday will assert that ministers have the power to ignore judgments that come from Strasbourg while stopping short of leaving or “disapplying” the European convention on human rights.’
The Guardian, 6th October 2023
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘All eyes were on the Supreme Court last Wednesday when it handed down its ruling on the lawfulness of the government’s much-criticised Rwanda scheme. The judgment featured a number of important issues (including issues relating to retained EU law) but the key question for the Court was simple: would sending individuals making asylum claims in the UK to Rwanda – to make asylum claims there instead – subject them to a real risk of ill-treatment? The Supreme Court’s answer was that it would. The government’s policy was therefore unlawful.’
Oxford Human Rights Hub, 22nd November 2023
Source: ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk
© Inner Temple Library 2024