The Court of Appeal has ruled the UK government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is unlawful.
Rwanda had not provided sufficient safeguards to prove it is a “safe third country”, senior judges ruled in a split decision.
It is likely ministers will challenge the ruling in the Supreme Court and insist the policy will deter small boat crossings.
Rwanda’s government said it is a safe place for people to be sent.
Ten people from countries including Syria, Iraq and Albania, who arrived in the UK in small boats, as well as the charity Asylum Aid, who argued the policy is unlawful.
The decision on whether Rwanda could be deemed a safe third country is largely based on whether there is a risk that people who are seeking asylum could be forced back to the country from where they were originally fleeing.
The High Court had backed the government’s policy at an earlier hearing but that decision was scrutinised by Appeal Court judges Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett, Sir Geoffrey Vos and Lord Justice Underhill in this latest stage of the process.
While Lord Burnett sided with the UK government, the others concluded that the assurances from the Rwandan government were not “sufficient to ensure that there is no real risk that asylum seekers relocated under the Rwanda policy will be wrongly returned to countries where they face persecution or other inhumane treatment”.
They said that sending asylum seekers to Rwanda will be unlawful “unless and until the deficiencies in [the government’s] asylum processes are corrected”.
The judges “stressed that decision implies no view whatever about the political merits or otherwise of the Rwanda policy”.
The Rwandan government insisted it is “one of the safest countries in the world” and had been recognised for its “exemplary treatment of refugees”.
