April 28, 2024
LONDON (AP) — The British government said Wednesday it will still try to send some migrants on a one-way trip to Rwanda, despite the U.K. Supreme Court ruling that the contentious plan is unlawful.
In a major blow to one of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's key policies, five justices on the country’s top court ruled unanimously that asylum-seekers sent to Rwanda would be “at real risk of ill-treatment” because they could be returned to the conflict-wracked home countries they'd fled.
Sunak, who has pledged to stop migrants reaching Britain in small boats across the English Channel, said the ruling “was not the outcome we wanted" but vowed to press on with the plan.
He said the court had “confirmed that the principle of removing asylum-seekers to a safe third country is lawful,” even as it ruled Rwanda unsafe.
He said the government was working on a treaty with Rwanda that would address the court's concerns, "and we will finalize that in light of today’s judgment.” If that fails, he said he was prepared to consider changing U.K. law and leaving international human rights treaties.
Refugee and human rights groups welcomed the court's decision and urged the government to drop the Rwanda plan. Charity ActionAid U.K. called it a vindication of “British values of compassion and dignity."
Britain and Rwanda signed a deal in April 2022 to send some migrants who arrive in the U.K. as stowaways or in boats to the East African country, where their asylum claims would be processed and, if successful, they would stay.
Britain’s government argued that the policy would deter people from risking their lives crossing one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, and would break the business model of people-smuggling gangs. Opposition politicians, refugee groups and human rights organizations said the plan was unethical and unworkable.
No one has yet been sent to the country as the plan was challenged in the courts.
Reading the decision, President of the Supreme Court Robert Reed said Rwanda had a history of misunderstanding its obligations toward refugees and couldn't be relied on to keep its promise not to mistreat asylum-seekers.
He cited the country’s poor human rights record, including enforced disappearances and torture, and said Rwanda practiced “refoulement” – sending migrants back to unsafe home countries.
The judges concluded there were “substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk that asylum claims will not be determined properly, and that asylum-seekers will in consequence be at risk of being returned directly or indirectly to their country of origin."
“In that event, genuine refugees will face a real risk of ill-treatment in circumstances where they should not have been returned at all," they said.
The U.K. government has argued that while Rwanda was the site of a genocide that killed more than 800,000 people in 1994, the country has since built a reputation for stability and economic progress.
The Rwandan government insisted the country was a safe place for refugees.
“Rwanda is committed to its international obligations," government spokesperson Yolande Makolo wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. "We have been recognized by the UNHCR and other international institutions for our exemplary treatment of refugees.”
The Rwanda plan has cost the British government at least $175 million in payments to Rwanda before a single plane has taken off. The first deportation flight was stopped at the last minute in June 2022, when the European Court of Human Rights intervened.
The case went to the High Court and the Court of Appeal, which ruled that the plan was unlawful because Rwanda is not a “safe third country.” The government unsuccessfully challenged that decision at the Supreme Court.
Sunak took comfort from the court's ruling that "the structural changes and capacity-building needed” to make Rwanda safe “may be delivered in the future."
