A key parliamentary committee's report noted that the British government's Rwanda deportation deal is fundamentally flawed and is incompatible with the United Kingdom's human rights safeguards.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights said that British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's plan jeopardized the UK's international reputation. The Rwanda bill will be debated in detail by the House of Lords this week and will face substantial opposition.
Even if Sunak's Rwanda bill passes, it is unclear whether or not flights will ever take off in the future. The British prime minister's controversial legislation was approved by MPs last month despite substantial opposition.
Sunak's own party was split over the plan and the immigration minister at the time quit his post, declaring that it would not work properly. Under the proposed scheme, which has so far cost $366 million, the UK will block claims for asylum for any individual arriving over the English Channel.
The region would instead send them on a one-way trip to Rwanda and the local government has promised to consider their cases for protection. The UK Supreme Court previously ruled that Rwanda is not a safe country because it could send victims of abuses, including torture, back to nations that they have fled from, as per BBC.
However, if Sunak's proposed bill is passed by Parliament, British judges will be told to find the country is a safe place without considering the evidence a second time. The cross-party Joint Committee on Human Rights said that the bill would deny nearly all asylum seekers the legal right to ask an independent court to assess their case to remain in the UK.
The report noted that the principle that individuals cannot be removed from a country to face a real risk of persecution, torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, or death is a core principle of international law. It noted that this is something that the UK has committed itself to on numerous occasions over the past seven decades.
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Breaching International Law
The committee argued that while Rwanda has pledged in a new treaty with the UK to work on improving its human rights safeguards, there was no guarantee that it would work in practice. It noted that the courts remain the most appropriate branch of the state to resolve contested issues of fact.
Sunak's Rwanda deportation bill is part of the UK government's attempts to curb the rising number of migrants who are arriving in England. They have made dangerous crossings, often in unseaworthy vessels, of one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, according to The National News.
The legislation would also place the responsibility on ministers to decide whether or not to comply with interim rulings that are issued by judges at the European Court of Human Rights. It therefore "openly invites the possibility of the UK breaching international law."
The situation comes after the UK's upper house of parliament last month voted to delay Sunak's Rwanda bill. It came despite the prime minister urging members of the unelected House of Lords to back his proposal, which he characterized as the will of the people, said Aljazeera.
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