In AAA v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] EWCA Civ 745, the Home Office planned to send ten asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing. They were from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, Sudan and Albania, and arrived in the UK in small boats from France.
The issue of whether the Rwanda asylum system was capable of delivering reliable outcomes was central to the case. The appellants argued Rwanda was not a ‘safe third country’ as there were substantial grounds for believing there was a real risk persons sent to Rwanda would be removed to their home country when, in fact, they have a good claim for asylum. This would breach art 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The appellants also brought a generic challenge on the lawfulness of the Rwanda policy more generally.
The High Court had quashed the individual decisions to remove them on the basis of procedural unfairness, but dismissed the generic challenge.
Granting the appeal, Lord Burnett, Sir Geoffrey Vos and Lord Justice Underhill, in a lengthy 161-page judgment, found there was a ‘real risk’ the asylum claims could be wrongly refused and ‘real risk’ of refoulement.
Ben Keith, barrister at 5 St Andrew’s Hill, said: ‘The court found there were fundamental problems with the Rwandan asylum system which could not be glossed over by the Memorandum of Understanding.
‘They also commented that there remain concerns about Rwanda’s use of torture and repression of dissent but did not finally determine the point.’
Welcoming the decision, Law Society president Lubna Shuja said the ruling provided further evidence the government’s Illegal Migration Bill is ‘fatally flawed’.
Shuja said: ‘The government has only secured one removals agreement, which is with Rwanda, that has now been ruled unlawful.
‘This means that at the proposed time the government plans for the bill to come into force, there will be no removals agreements in place. Regardless, Rwanda alone would not be able to accept anywhere near the number of people who would be scheduled for “removal”.
‘Therefore, a large backlog of people due to be removed under the Illegal Migration Bill will build. They will be left in limbo and could remain in detention or government supported accommodation indefinitely.’
