The Supreme Court has this morning concluded that the Rwanda scheme is unlawful, ending 18 months of legal battles in UK courts. In a succinct 10-minute summary, the court ruled against the flagship scheme because of the risk that genuine refugees could be returned to countries from which they have fled.
Delivering the verdict, Lord Reed, the Supreme Court’s President, said that there are ‘substantial grounds to believe asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would be at real risk of refoulment’ – that is being sent to their home nations – something which happened under a ‘similar’ deal with Israel between 2013 and 2018.
The Supreme Court judges were ‘unanimously of the view’ that the Court of Appeal was right to have previously declared the deal unlawful, and that the High Court – which ruled it lawful last December – ‘made a mistake’ by failing to give proper consideration to evidence from the UN Refugee Agency.
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