Rwanda not a safe third country for asylum seekers, according to Court of Appeal

As a brief background, in April 2022 the highly debated Memorandum of Understanding, a non-legally binding international agreement between Rwandan authorities and the UK Government, called the “Migration and Economic Development Partnership”, arranged that the UK would send a number of asylum seekers to Rwanda. In exchange, the UK would pay a large sum and a “per capita” fee to the Rwandan government.

The asylum seekers eligible would be those whose claims the UK deems “inadmissible” and would be without the asylum seekers’ consent. Last-minute, the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECHR’) and Court of Appeal intervened and the first flight scheduled to take asylum seekers to Rwanda on 14th June 2022 was halted.

Court of Appeal decision

The Court of Appeal has now reached a decision on the appeal of the 2022 decision of the High Court. The High Court found that the Refugee Convention did not prevent the removal of asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda and that this process was adequately fair and safe. The Court of Appeal has found, in a majority judgement of two judges to one, that Rwanda is not a safe third country for asylum seekers to be sent to from the UK.

One judge for the majority decision found that there were substantial grounds of a real risk that Article 3 of the ECHR (that no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment) would be breached. The judge cited historical human rights violations in Rwanda, particularly where approximately 12 refugees had were killed by police forces in 2018 whilst protesting their conditions. The judge also cited an 100% asylum claim refusal rate for particular nationalities.

The second judge for the majority referred to a similar agreement between Rwanda and Israel where human rights breaches were found to have taken place. The judge also closely examined the Rwandan refugee status procedure, finding that there were “serious deficiencies” unlikely to be fixed in the immediate future.

Other implications

All other grounds of the appeal were dismissed. Interestingly, this includes the ground considering Article 31 of the Refugee Convention and the principle of removing of asylum seekers to a safe third country generally.

Additionally, the procedural fairness ground regarding the rapid seven-day turnaround period which includes where an asylum seeker has arrived in the UK, is in detention, is being considered for removal to Rwanda, has to obtain legal representation, and has to submit legal representations in support of their claim, was dismissed.

It is likely that the UK Government will seek to appeal the decision of the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court. This decision means no transfers of asylum seekers to Rwanda will take place, currently.

Our team in Glasgow and Edinburgh advise on all aspects of immigration law and should you require any further advice relating to these matters, please do contact a member of our immigration team.