Rishi Sunak has taken the incredibly rare step of publishing the Government’s legal advice on his new legislation to send migrants to Rwanda.
This comes as the Prime Minister attempts to fend off a rebellion from his own party.
Around midday, lawyers acting on behalf of right-wing Tory factions published their extremely critical verdict on the legislation, saying it does not “go far enough to deliver the policy as intended”.
But the Government’s own legal advice, published just minutes later, hits back at this.
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It warns that “completely blocking” legal challenges would be a “breach of international law” and “alien to UK’s constitutional tradition of liberty and justice”,
The guidance also notes that the UK maintained such rights “even in wartime”.
It says: “In any case, completely blocking any court challenges would be a breach of international law and alien to the UK’s constitutional tradition of liberty and justice, where even in wartime the UK has maintained access to the courts in order that individuals can uphold their rights and freedoms.
“The bill limits unnecessary challenges whilst maintaining the principle of access to the courts where an individual may be at a real risk of serious and irreversible harm.
“Taken as a whole, the limited availability of domestic remedies maintains the constitutional balance between Parliament being able to legislate as it sees necessary, and the powers of our Courts to hold the government to account.”
But advice from right wing lawyers warned that the Bill provides a “partial and incomplete solution to the problem of legal challenges.”
Lawyers acted on behalf of five groups of Conservative MPs – the European Research Group, the New Conservatives, the Common Sense Group, the Northern Research Group and the Conservative Growth Group.
The document, which lists 13 “limitations” of the legislation, warns the Bill “contains no restrictions on the bringing of legal challenges against removal to Rwanda based on grounds other than that Rwanda is not a safe country”.
It also claims there is “nothing in the Bill which would prevent the UK courts from following or being influenced by a final ruling of the Strasbourg Court on a case where the Bill does not expressly preclude them from doing so”.
Sunak has been warned that, once in Rwanda, an asylum seeker “will be able to appeal any previous decisions based on new evidence”.
However, the group is yet to confirm how it will advise its MPs to vote.
There is a chance it could choose to vote for the bill tomorrow, in order to make amendments at its next stage.
But it is understood that the ERG-led coalition of Tory factions wants Sunak to toughen up the Bill before it faces a vote tomorrow.
