THE UK Government’s Rwanda plan is “probably dead” in its current form, former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption has said.
When asked by Trevor Phillips on the presenter’s Sunday show on Sky News whether the scheme is “dead”, he replied: “I think the current Rwanda scheme is probably dead, but we obviously have to suspend judgment until we see what this legislation or this new treaty looks like.”
It comes after the Prime Minister announced he would bring in emergency legislation and that he intended to sign a new treaty with Kigali in a bid to address issues that led the UK’s highest court to rule the deal was unlawful.
Meanwhile, Number 10 has promised the treaty will published in “the coming days”, but said it could not confirm reports that this will be as soon as Monday.
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The yet-to-be-published treaty with Rwanda is expected to attempt to address the Supreme Court’s concerns around refoulement – the potential for refugees whose applications for asylum are rejected by Kigali to be sent back to the country they are fleeing from.
He also suggested judges in Strasbourg would come to a similar view of the scheme’s legality as UK Supreme Court justices.
He said: “The Government have made clear … that they don’t intend to do that [withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights]. Although the Government may well ignore interim orders from Strasbourg, they presumably intend to comply with final orders from Strasbourg.
“It [the Strasbourg court] will investigate safety for itself and probably arrive at a conclusion very similar to that of the Supreme Court.”
He also said he is “sceptical” of reported plans to send British civil servants to work in the east African country, adding: “The main problem [with the] scheme is that it outsources to Rwanda the decision about whether people have refugee status.”
Sumption previously told the BBC the plan to use a law to declare Rwanda as safe was “profoundly discreditable”, “constitutionally really quite extraordinary”, and would “effectively overrule” a decision by the UK’s highest court.
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