Britain proposes bypassing human rights laws to let Rwanda scheme take off
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Britain proposes bypassing human rights laws to let Rwanda scheme take off
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain published emergency legislation on Wednesday which it hopes will allow its Rwandan migrant deportation scheme to finally take off by bypassing domestic and international human rights laws that might block it.
The "Safety of Rwanda Bill" is designed to overcome a ruling by the UK Supreme Court that the government's proposed scheme to send thousands of migrants to the East African country was unlawful.
But the proposals are set to cause divisions in Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's governing Conservative party and could trigger further legal challenges, though Sunak said the proposed law would mean the policy would no longer be bogged down in the courts.
"Our new landmark emergency legislation will control our borders, deter people taking perilous journeys across the channel (and) end the continuous legal challenges filling our courts," Sunak said on X.
"It is parliament that should decide who comes to this country, not criminal gangs."
The bill says that the law should bypass Britain's Human Rights Act (HRA) and "any other provision or rule of domestic law, and any interpretation of international law by the court or tribunal".
That plan is at the centre of Sunak's immigration policy, and its success is likely to be key to the fortunes of his Conservative Party, trailing about 20 points in opinion polls, before an election expected next year and with the issue one of the biggest concerns among voters.
Suella Braverman, sacked from the government last month but who as interior minister had been responsible for immigration, had earlier called for the new law to contain legal provisions to ignore the European Convention on Human Rights and the HRA.
"The Conservative Party faces electoral oblivion in a matter of months, if we introduce yet another bill destined to fail," she told parliament.
Sunak has vowed flights would begin in the spring next year, and the proposed law said courts should ignore any injunction from the European Court of Human Rights to block flights.
