Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has told Sky News it will take "a few months" to deport radical cleric Abu Qatada because of legal process.
There is currently confusion over whether an appeal against his deportation to Jordan was made in time.
Qatada 's lawyers lodged an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday night, but the Home Office insists it was made after the three-month deadline had elapsed.
Former attorney-general Lord Goldsmith told Sky News he believes "on balance" the Home Secretary was wrong over the dates and that she should have "erred on the side of caution".
A panel of five judges will now decide whether the appeal is valid and should be considered by the court's Grand Chamber.
If the legal process continues for some months and any deportation is delayed, Qatada - once described by a judge as Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe - may be considered for bail .
Mr Clarke told Sky News: "When Theresa (May) announced it in the first place she did say it would take several months more.
"We're governed by the rule of the law - it's one of the prides of the United Kingdom that it is, and the result is inevitably, as she said straight away, it's going to take a few months of legal process.
"I think some of the wild excitement about the details of that process has been taken rather to excess."
The Justice Secretary also complained that the "circus" over Qatada had distracted attention from a conference held in Brighton on reforming the European Court of Human Rights.
He said: "We got rather overshadowed by the circus in London that surrounded the deporting of Abu Qatada, but actually I think more important achievements took place down in Brighton."
Reforming the European Court of Human Rights is a priority for many Conservative MPs, who feel the European court should not be able to dictate what happens in Britain.
Mr Clarke said that "remarkable progress" was made in Brighton to get the 47 member states to agree to a declaration to accelerate reforms that would help clear the large backlog of cases.
However, it follows reports that Cabinet ministers clashed over whether sufficient progress had been made.
The UK had originally wanted to narrow the criteria for cases to be admissible to the European Court of Human Rights.
Reports in The Sunday Telegraph suggest Education Secretary Michael Gove attacked the compromise as unacceptable during a Cabinet meeting held before the conference.
