Copy the page URI to the clipboard
Ritchie, Kate
(2024).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10854681.2024.2395153
Abstract
The policy of the UK government to remove asylum seekers to Rwanda has attracted considerable debate and controversy. A judicial review case brought to challenge this policy, on the basis that Rwanda is not a safe country, revealed different attitudes amongst the judiciary in the UK’s domestic courts on the question of whether they had judicial competence to adjudicate on the matter. This analysis reviews the rationale underpinning the findings of each court, concluding that both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court demonstrated a much more expansive approach towards their judicial competence compared with that exhibited by the High Court. This had profound implications ultimately for the outcome of the case, but that outcome was not, in view of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024, enough, ultimately, to provide the protection the applicants were seeking and could, arguably, be said to have been a pyrrhic victory and one which may have wider implications for the exercise of judicial competence in judicial review of alleged human rights breaches.
Plain Language Summary
This is an analysis of the findings of the domestic courts in relation to the question of whether proposed removal of asylum seekers to Rwanda was a breach of those asylum seekers' human rights. The courts came to different decisions, reflecting different understandings amongst the judiciary of the extent to which they could intervene in government policy.