Category: Removals/Deportations

Following the passing of the ‘safety of Rwanda’ Bill … and no ICIBI to oversee what is happening!

13 May 2024: Irish Times: UK Rwanda deportation law provisions should not apply in Northern Ireland, judge rules

High Court finds measures in UK government’s legislation undermine human rights protections guaranteed under post-Brexit arrangements

Mr Justice Humphreys delivered judgment at Belfast High Court on Monday in two challenges against the Act that focused on the peace process human rights protections guaranteed by the Windsor Framework.

The judge found that several elements of the Act do cause a “significant” diminution of the rights enjoyed by asylum seekers residing in Northern Ireland under the terms of the Belfast Agreement.

also in Sorani, Dari, Pashto, Arabic, Farsi, Amharic, Tigrinya, Albanian here:

file:///C:/Users/ACER/Downloads/Rwanda%20information%20leaflet%20for%20asylum%20seekers.pdf

12 March 2024: Guardian: Civil servants threaten ministers with legal action over Rwanda bill

Exclusive: Union says Home Office staff could be in breach of international law if they implement deportations

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 FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, have warned they could also be in violation of the civil service code – and open to possible prosecution – if they followed a minister’s demands to ignore an urgent injunction from Strasbourg banning a deportation.

It has sent a pre-action legal letter to James Cleverly, the home secretary, calling for clarity – with a request to either amend the legislation or change the code.

7 December 2023: QARN: We utterly dissociate ourselves from the Rwanda Bill

Asylum Seekers come to our country because they believe they will receive the protection of a regime which upholds democracy freedoms and human rights. We deeply deplore the fact that our country proposes to disapply these freedoms and these rights from those our Christian faith and practice most calls on us to support and cherish. As has been said, “refugees are human rights made visible”; they have “the right to have rights”. We believe that human rights are defined as universal, inalienable, indivisible and Interdependent; withholding them from anybody is an attack on everybody. 

For this reason alone we utterly dissociate ourselves from the Rwanda Bill. But the survival of our democracy depends not only on respect for all human beings but also on respect for the constitutional separation of powers. It is alarming to see that our executive now proposes to defy the Rule of Law both nationally and internationally in order to place narrow nationalistic loyalties above the things that bind us together in our Global Village . 

14 November 2023: Open Democracy: Supreme Court Rwanda ruling is a victory – but not the slam dunk you think

The courts won’t save us from the Home Office’s cruelty. Those who defend refugees must get bolder – fast

he UK Supreme Court has ruled that the government’s flagship Rwanda deportation plan for refugees is unlawful – a decision that will bring relief to thousands of men, women and children seeking asylum in this country who are trapped in the government’s backlog in crummy hotels or on the prison barge.

The Supreme Court found unanimously that there were clear grounds to believe refugees would not be safe in Rwanda, where 100% of people from Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan have had their asylum claims rejected, and where the government itself is accused of torture, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances. The real and serious danger in which our government was aiming to put people who came to us seeking protection is unthinkable and must never be forgotten.