Campaigners and asylum seekers have won a Court of Appeal challenge over the government’s planned Rwanda deportation scheme.
Three judges have overturned a High Court ruling that previously said the east African nation could be considered a “safe third country” for migrants to be sent to.
It is the latest court verdict in a long-running legal battle to get the controversial scheme up and running, after it was announced last April as part of plans to crack down on Channel crossings.
Announcing the ruling, Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett said he does not accept that migrants would be at risk of removal to their home countries from Rwanda – but it is not a safe place for them to housed in while their asylum claims are processed.
Politics latest: Ex-ministers singled out for ‘most vociferous attacks’ on Johnson probe
The judge concluded: “The result is that the High Court’s decision that Rwanda was a safe third country is reversed, and unless and until the deficiencies in its asylum process are corrected, removal of asylum seekers will be unlawful.”
Lord Burnett said the court reached its conclusion on the law and took “no view whatsoever” about the political merits of the policy.
“Those are entirely a matter for the government, on which the court has nothing to say,” he added.
In December last year, two judges at the High Court dismissed a series of legal bids against the government’s plan to provide asylum seekers with a one-way ticket to the east African country.
However a month later it granted an appeal against its own judgment, giving campaigners a chance to renew their legal fight.
The latest ruling was welcomed by Green MP Caroline Lucas who tweeted: “Excellent news that Court of Appeal has ruled Braverman’s utterly inhumane, grotesquely immoral & totally unworkable #Rwanda scheme to be illegal too – & in clear breach of human rights law. Time for an asylum policy which treats people with respect & dignity.”
The government wants to send tens of thousands of migrants more than 4,000 miles away to Rwanda as part of a £120m deal agreed with the government in Kigali last year.
The policy was introduced under Boris Johnson but has been pushed forward by his successors as part of their plans to tackle small boat crossings in the Channel.
However, no one has made the journey yet.
A flight was stopped at the eleventh hour in June last year after an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
Campaigners have said the policy is “cruel and will cause great human suffering”, and fought through the courts to stop it from happening.
But the government argues the current system “incentivises” people to make dangerous journeys across the Channel and doing nothing is “not an option”.
The latest ruling could face a further uphill battle if it is taken to the Supreme Court and after that, the European Court of Human Rights.