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Parts of UK’s Rwanda law cannot apply in Northern Ireland, Court rules
Significant parts of the British government’s Illegal Migration Act, commonly known as the Rwanda law, should not apply in Northern Ireland because those provisions breach human rights laws, the NI High Court has ruled.
The Act gave new powers to the British government to remove asylum seekers it found had arrived illegally in the UK, and send them to Rwanda for processing.
Mr Justice Humphreys said the law breached the Windsor Framework – the post Brexit agreement between the UK and the EU – and also found that aspects of the Act were incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The Windsor Framework stipulates that there can be no diminution of the human rights provisions contained within the historic Good Friday Agreement of 1998.
Mr Justice Humphreys, in a judgment delivered at Belfast High Court said the application of the Act would lead to a a “significant” diminution of the rights enjoyed by asylum seekers residing in Northern Ireland under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
“I have found that there is a relevant diminution of right in each of the areas relied upon by the applicants,” he said.
“The applicants’ primary submission therefore succeeds,” he found. “Each of the statutory provisions under consideration infringes the protection afforded to RSE (Rights, safeguards and equality of opportunity) in the Good Friday Agreement.”
He then ruled that the sections of the Act that were the subject of the legal challenges should be “disapplied” in Northern Ireland.
The cases were taken by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. Downing Street said the UK government would challenge the High Court ruling on the Act.
A Sunday Times/Ireland Thinks poll last week found that 50pc of respondents want checkpoints on the Border to deter migrants, and that “40pc support for a policy similar to that planned by the Tories in the UK to deport migrants to Rwanda, with 42pc against such a proposal and 17pc unsure.”
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