Brexit guaranteed more freedom to tighten immigration policies, but the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) was the first to deal a serious blow to Boris Johnson’s plans to outsource the management of immigration to a third country. The Strasbourg-based ECtHR made the decision against which several English courts had objected. He first ordered late Tuesday the suspension of the transfer of a 54-year-old Iraqi national who was told he had been destined for the trip, despite “on March 27 the Immigration Center [donde residía, a su llegada al Reino Unido] prepared a report showing that the applicant may have been tortured,” the ECtHR’s suspension order reads. A judge on duty at the court began examining the claims of the other six immigrants who were supposed to be on the first plane to Rwanda because the legal arguments used to stop the Iraqi national’s deportation would also apply to them. Eventually he decided to order the suspension of all of them as the ITV chain moved forward.
An empty plane and a confused and incapacitated government. After consecutive victories in British courts that gave the green light to their deportation plans, it was the European judiciary – the black beast of the Conservative Party’s Eurosceptic wing – that stopped the entire strategy.
Boris Johnson’s survival instinct led him to believe that whoever resists wins. Any strategy to reduce irregular immigration will be welcomed by Conservative voters, who backed Brexit in 2016 and sided with the current Prime Minister in 2019. Downing Street and Britain’s Foreign Office have decided to take a stand against criticism their policy of deporting asylum seekers to the African country of Rwanda has drawn. The leaders of the Church of England, 23 bishops who have a seat in the House of Lords, have sent a letter to The Times newspaper harshly denouncing an immigration practice “which should shame us as a nation”.
“Deportations or forced returns of asylum seekers to their countries of origin are not the right way to deal with this situation. It is an immoral policy that shames Britain,” reads a text whose first signature is that of Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, supreme head – after the Queen, who is supreme head – of the Anglican Church. Earlier, he had spoken about deportations in a sermon in which he described the practice as “contrary to God”.
“I don’t agree at all. The only immoral people in this whole thing are the human traffickers who deal in human misery,” British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss replied to the bishops. “These people [en referencia a los autores de la carta] You must propose an alternative policy that works. Ours is perfectly legal and perfectly moral,” Truss said.
The first flight to Rwanda was due to depart from London Stansted Airport late this Tuesday night. Although the Johnson government wanted to keep the location and time of the flight secret until the end, the civil aviation authority’s register had revealed that it would be dealing with a Spanish company based in Mallorca, Privilege Style, in charge of hiring a charter was responsible for departing almost empty at Kigali airport. Of the 130 immigrants who had been informed of their imminent destination, fewer than a dozen remained. The government had backed down with the rest due to the doubts and legal challenges each individual case posed. It had gone from a “practical solution” to a symbolic effort by the Johnson executive to show that no one was going to twist his arm. Some calculations published by British media estimate that the flight would ultimately cost around 580,000 euros. “The value of the flight justifies the price,” defended the minister, “because what we really want is to avoid the costs involved, both in money and in lives. [las embarcaciones que cruzan el canal de la Mancha]”, he added.
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The British judiciary initially sided with the Johnson government. Last Friday, a High Court of England judge rejected requests by individual immigrants and humanitarian organizations to suspend the first flight. His decision was upheld by an appeals court 72 hours later on Monday. But that doesn’t mean the judges have upheld the ultimate legality of the policy. That remains in the hands of the Supreme Court, which must decide before the end of the year. In any case, the agency also rejected the suspension of the first flight this Tuesday. Home Secretary Priti Patel’s pledge to take back those deported if the courts finally uphold the illegality of the new immigration policy won the judges over. “There are explicit provisions contemplating the return of relocated persons in Article 11 of the Protocol of Intent [firmado entre Londres y Kigali]’ noted court reporter Robert Reed in his verdict.
According to this protocol, the Rwandan authorities must provide all those migrants posted by the British authorities with “housing and accommodation ensuring their health, safety and personal well-being”, while the United Kingdom decides whether to grant them refugee or refugee status a type of refugee status grants international protection. All of them are free to move around the country like any legal resident. Asylum procedures or the granting of refugee status must be carried out in accordance with the UN Refugee Convention and Rwandan immigration laws and guarantee the assistance of an interpreter and a legal representative throughout the procedure.
flood of lawsuits
When Boris Johnson announced the new deportation policy, agreed with the Rwandan government for a first installment of more than 140 million euros, he already expected to face a spate of lawsuits in court. Their option was to blame lawyers and activist organizations for contributing to the stagnation of an existing problem by delaying their resources. “What is behind your attempt to undermine politics? [de traslados] to Rwanda is, I fear, an attempt to undermine all our efforts to find legal and safe routes for those coming to Britain, rather than the dangerous and illegal routes they are using,” Johnson told his ministers at the meeting of the Cabinet this Tuesday It’s meetings vetoed by cameras, but the prime minister has begun allowing media access in the first few minutes to spread a message aimed more at citizens than members of his government .
And in the last few hours, Johnson has decided to raise his tone in the face of criticism, to the point of suggesting the possibility of his government withdrawing the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights. The hard wing of the Conservative Party and many Conservative judges have spent years criticizing a body of legislation that condition British common law and lead to a constitutional review of every decision – even a political one – by a court, the Supreme Court, in the era of Tony Blair and I still miss the Anglo-Saxon justice system. “It will be necessary to change some laws to help us [a evitar todos los recursos en los tribunales], while we go? It’s very possible that’s the case,” Johnson said. In fact, the ECtHR bases the vast majority of its resolutions on the Convention, which blames Johnson for excessive judicial bureaucracy.
Other statements, such as his rejection of the interference of the heir to the throne Charles of England in the immigration debate, remain classified. The Times newspaper revealed last week that the Queen’s son had revealed in a private conversation his opposition to a policy he described as “appalling”. Buckingham Palace has neither confirmed nor denied the information.
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