Britain’s Supreme Court has flatly rejected the Conservative government’s plan to outsource the costs of sending and receiving refugees to Rwanda to Kigali in exchange for funding. It is a heavy blow for Chancellor Rishi Sunak and one that could have consequences in Europe, where many countries, including Giorgia Meloni’s Italy, are developing similar plans. According to the plan presented by the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, London aimed to send tens of thousands of refugees who came to the British coast without permission to the East African country, more than 6 thousand kilometers away from the island. In order to deter immigrants from Europe crossing the Channel in small boats. More than 27,000 people have arrived on the south coast of England without permission this year, after 45,755 were detected in 2022.
However, the blocking of the first deportation flight by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) raised doubts about the compliance of the plan with international humanitarian law. From here a long legal battle arose, resulting in today’s sentence. The High Court in London unanimously rejected the government’s appeal and upheld an earlier decision that migrants could not be sent to Rwanda because it could not be considered a safe third country. Chief Justice Robert Reed said the five judges involved agreed that there were “significant reasons to believe that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would face a real risk of refoulement,” meaning there was a risk of repatriation. a place where they may be subjected to cruelty or mistreatment.
To overcome this legal obstacle, many Conservatives now argue that the UK should withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, thereby ceding jurisdiction to the ECHR. However, Reed explained that the decision was based not only on the Convention but also on other laws and treaties, and so even outside the ECHR, at least fundamental changes to the idea would be necessary.
The consequences of rejection also affect Europe; Austria has already signed an agreement with Great Britain to participate in this plan, and Denmark is planning a similar plan to be agreed with Rwanda. The last country to consider a similar plan was Italy, which signed an agreement with Edi Rama’s Albania to disembark migrants rescued at sea in the Balkan country and hold them in reception centers where their asylum applications can be examined. This plan first received the green light from the European Union, but Brussels is waiting to see the details more precisely. “Our legal service’s preliminary assessment of the agreement between Italy and Albania is that the agreement does not violate community law because it is ‘outside community law’,” European Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said.
“The operational agreement between Albania and Italy appears to concern only third-country nationals who have not entered Union territory but have been rescued by Italian ships on the high seas. These cases are not subject to the EU’s asylum rules”, the Commission spokesman added. Italy states that our country will process asylum applications through its consulates, not Albania: If refugee status is granted, we always welcome the immigrant, while those who are rejected will be sent back to their home countries. . “Member States can extend the application of EU law beyond the territory of the Union while still under the jurisdiction of a third country,” the spokesman added, adding that “this must happen in a way that is fully consistent with EU law. This includes, for example, Member States allowing international protection applications to be lodged with their consulates.” “.
From the perspective of European law, Meloni’s plan therefore appears compatible. However, this does not exclude a different assessment by the European Court of Human Rights, as in the case of England, which the plan will undoubtedly result in. Even if Albania is still a candidate country for European Union membership and is seen as much more reliable than Rwanda in terms of respecting human rights, the decision there may be different.
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Source: Today IT
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
