London, Nov 15 (EFE).- The top court of the United Kingdom blocked Prime Minister Rishi Sunank’s plan to send asylum seekers who enter the country clandestinely to Rwanda on Wednesday.
The unanimous ruling by five Supreme Court judges dashed the government’s flagship new migration policy.
Supreme Court President Robert Reed said there was a risk that asylum seekers processed by the Rwandan state may be deported to the home countries they fled from.
“There are substantial grounds for believing that asylum seekers would face a real risk of ill-treatment by reason of refoulement to their country of origin if they were removed to Rwanda,” the judges wrote in their ruling.
Thus, the Supreme Court rejected the government’s appeal against a ruling by a lower court that also considered that Rwanda was not a “safe country” to send irregular migrants.
With the ruling, the judges of the highest judicial authority agreed with several asylum seekers and non-governmental organizations who consistently argued about the human rights situation in the African country.
Reed said the court’s decision was purely on a legal basis and did not take into account the current political debate on migration policy.
He noted that international laws and treaties on migration and human rights were evaluated during the process of legal examination of the matter.
The president also emphasized the fundamental legal principle that asylum seekers should not be sent to their country of origin without considering their claims about the danger that the return would pose.
The decision deals a severe blow to the Conservative government’s immigration policy since the Rwanda plan, initiated in April 2020 when Boris Johnson was prime minister, was central to addressing the issue.
The government unveiled the Rwanda plan in response to a soaring number of small boat crossings by asylum seekers across the English Channel between England and France.
The rate of crossings has been increasing, and Sunak has pledged to reverse the trend.
The Rwanda plan was backed by then-UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who was dismissed by Sunak on Monday following her criticism of the British police. EFE
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