Supreme Court finds Rwanda is not a safe country to which refugees can be removed

The Supreme Court has today held that Rwanda is not a safe country and that it would be unlawful for refugees to be removed there. The government’s appeal against the Court of Appeal’s judgment has been dismissed.

Rwanda is widely acknowledged as having a poor human rights record. It is therefore in breach of numerous treaty commitments it has made. And the courts in Rwanda do not act an effective check on government behaviour: there is no real judicial independence. Further, the Rwandan government breached the terms of a previous asylum deal into which it entered with Israel. It is therefore not a government whose word can be taken at face value.

The critical question for the court was

whether there were substantial grounds for believing that the removal of asylum seekers to Rwanda would expose them to a real risk of ill treatment, as a consequence of refoulement to another country

The Supreme Court, reviewing the evidence for itself, concluded that there were such grounds.

What next for the UK government?

The Supreme Court’s judgment will prevent the UK government from lawfully removing anyone to Rwanda, based on the evidence as it currently stands.

If the government nevertheless wants to press ahead with its plans — or at least pretend to, pending an election — its options might include:

1. Find a different country which is safer than Rwanda.
2. Make arrangements in Rwanda that reduce the risk of refoulement, for example by managing the asylum process itself.
3. Withdraw from the ECHR and the UN system of international treaties, including the Refugee Convention, the UN Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and abolish not just the Human Rights Act but also domestic asylum legislation from 1993 and 2002.