Two asylum seekers who had their deportation to Rwanda halted by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) face a review of the decision from Monday.
The European court made a dramatic last minute intervention on Tuesday night, ruling that an Iraqi asylum seeker should not be removed to Rwanda until the lawfulness of the Home Office’s policy was established in the English courts.
The decision has been condemned by Tory politicians, and deputy prime minister Dominic Raab said on Thursday that the flight’s grounding strengthened the case for reforming human rights laws.
Tuesday’s ECHR ruling was followed by a flurry of legal applications from at least five other people scheduled to be on the 10.30pm flight from the Ministry of Defence’s airport, Boscombe Down.
In two of the cases, the ECHR decided to apply an “interim measure” to delay the asylum seeker’s removal until 6pm CET on Monday 20 June.
The court decided it should have more time for “their requests to be considered in greater detail”, according to an ECHR note. This means that the order against their removal could be thrown into doubt when the interim period runs out on Monday, an ECHR official told The Independent.
In a further two applications, asylum seekers’ requests for interim measures were rejected by the European court on Tuesday. The judge argued that the two asylum seekers had not made use of their legal options in the UK.
It is thought that lawyers had to go back to the UK High Court in a race against time to secure their client’s removal from the flight. They used the Iraqi asylum seeker’s first successful challenge to argue that the English courts should grant the asylum seekers a stay of removal, it is understood.
Deputy prime minister Dominic Raab said on Thursday that the interim measures used by the ECHR should not have force in the UK. He said: “In relation to the latest intervention from Strasbourg, so-called Rule 39 interim orders, which are not grounded in the European Convention, they’re based on the rules and procedure, internal rules of the court.
“I certaintly believe they should not have a legally binding effect under UK law.”
Despite the ECHR decision being reviewed on Monday, a lawyer representing one of the asylum seekers pulled from the Rwanda flight told The Independent that they did not expect the Home Office to pursue any deportations before their policy is tested in the courts in July.
Separately, director of public law at Duncan Lewis Solicitors, Toufique Hossain, said on Wednesday that it was “extremely unlikely” that a further flight could be chartered before the review process is completed.
“Anyone served removal directions can just go back to the High Court and the High Court will presumably grant the injunctive relief based on the ECHR ruling,” Mr Hossain said.
But he added: “It’s not unrealistic that they’re going to try, because it’s this government.”
