Judges in London’s High Court on Monday will rule on one of the UK government’s most contentious policies when they deliver their verdict on the Home Office’s plans to send immigrants claiming asylum to Rwanda while their claims are reviewed.
During hearings in September, the court was told that the plan would expose those sent to the central African country to the risk of human rights abuses in a “one-party, authoritarian state”.
The Home Office has argued that the plan is necessary to prevent the danger and misery caused by the business of trafficking people, often in small boats across the English Channel, to the UK to make their asylum claims.
Ministers’ efforts to send people to Rwanda have been on hold since June, when the European Court of Human Rights barred the government from going ahead with the first flight. The policy has been on hold since then pending court rulings on the policy’s lawfulness.
The challenge to the policy has been brought by charities Detention Action and Care4Calais, as well as people potentially facing removal to Rwanda and the PCS Union. Monday’s hearing starts at 10.30am.
The government has argued that it has the right to send people who claim asylum to another country for processing, as long as that country is safe. Advocates for people seeking asylum have said the UK is obliged under the UN refugee convention to consider the asylum claims regardless of how those involved arrived in the country.
Source : FinancialTimes