The European court has seriously overstepped over Rwanda

Last night’s abrupt order from the European Court of Human Rights that led to the grounding of the first Rwanda deportation flight delighted progressives everywhere. They will of course say – rather in the fashion of twentieth-century home secretaries calmly refusing to reprieve a condemned murderer – that the law is merely taking its course, and that we should be proud that the rule of law has been upheld.

This sounds comforting. It is also wrong-headed. The Rwanda debacle in fact raises very serious questions about the legitimacy of the Strasbourg judges and their interference with national administrations.

To remind you of the background, concerted lawfare in the English courts failed to block the flight. However, the Strasbourg court’s intervention (or rather, one of its judges who happened to be on duty that night) led to the operation being halted. This wasn’t because it infringed the human rights of the deportees: we don’t know, and won’t for some time, whether it did or not.