The High Court in the UK has ruled that a government plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda while their application is being processed is lawful.
Lord Justice Lewis, delivering the judgement, said: “The Government’s proposal to relocate asylum seekers to Rwanda has been the subject of considerable public debate.
“The role of the court is only to ensure that the law is properly understood and observed and that rights guaranteed by Parliament are respected.”
“We have concluded that it is lawful for the Government to make arrangements for relocating asylum seekers to Rwanda and for their asylum claims to be determined in Rwanda rather than the UK.”
“On the evidence before this court, the Government has made arrangements with the Government of Rwanda which are intended to ensure that the asylum claims of people relocated to Rwanda are properly determined in Rwanda.
“In those circumstances, the relocation of asylum seekers to Rwanda is consistent with the Refugee Convention and other legal obligations on the Government including the obligations imposed by the Human Rights Act 1998.”
The ‘Rwanda Plan’ is a 5-year program that seeks to send migrants who have come illegally to Britain to Rwanda where the British government will pay for them to be housed and fed while the Rwandan authorities assess their claim for asylum.
Whilst in Rwanda, the applicants will be given asylum seeker status for that country, and they may look for work and move about freely. It is proposed that Rwanda be paid £120m for providing those services.
While the media and many taxpayer-funded NGOs hated the plan, the public seemed narrowly supportive. ComRes director, Chris Hopkins previously said that while the public seemed to think the plan might be flawed, in seems they preferred that to no plan at all.
The proposal, however, stalled because of legal challenges, and the first flight planned for June was grounded.
The British government will be pleased that at their success in the legal challenge but an appeal is now likely which will delay the plan further.
The High Court also ruled that eight individual cases involving asylum seekers who crossed the English Channel had not been properly considered by the Home Office – and said that those cases must now be referred them back to be reconsidered by the Home Secretary.
“The Home Secretary must consider properly the circumstances of each individual claimant. The Home Secretary must decide if there is anything about each person’s particular circumstances which means that his asylum claim should be determined in the UK or whether there are reasons he should be relcoated to Rwanda,” Lord Justice Lewis said.
“The Home Secretary has not properly considered the circumstances of the eight individual claimants whose cases we have considered. For that reason, the decisions in those cases will be set aside and their cases will be referred back to the Home Secretary to be considered afresh.”
The legal challenges were brought by two charities Care4Calais and Detention Action, who disputed the government’s assertion that Rwanda was a safe third country. The Home Office argued Rwanda was a “fundamentally safe and secure country, with a track record of supporting asylum seekers”.
The ruling will attract international attention, in particular, because other European countries look set to follow suit in regard to processing asylum seekers, with commentators arguing that many of whom are found to be economic migrants and are not coming from countries which are war torn.
The Danish Ministry for Immigration and Integration has signed a joint statement on bilateral cooperation based on “exploring the establishment of a program through which spontaneous asylum seekers arriving in Denmark may be transferred to Rwanda for consideration of their asylum applications.”
The statement said it would also include “the option of settling in Rwanda” for those who have come illegally to Denmark.
An earlier partnership agreement had been announced between the two countries in 2021, but the latest statement confirms that Rwanda is prepared to those claiming asylum from Denmark.
Danish Immigration minister Kaare Dybvad Bek is visiting Rwanda with Flemming Møller Mortensen, the minister for foreign development, where they met media to present the new proposal.
The Rwanda plan is the latest in a series of measures from Denmark’s centre-left government which has taken a tough stance on immigration in response to public concerns.