UK Parliament approves controversial Rwanda deportation bill

Controversial UK government plans for deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda cleared their final hurdle on Monday, after a marathon tussle between the upper and lower chambers of parliament lasting late into the night. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says deportation flights would begin in July.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his ruling Conservatives have been seeking to push through legislation that will compel judges to regard the east African nation as a safe third country.

They also want to give decision-makers on asylum applications the power to disregard sections of international and domestic human rights law to get around a UK Supreme Court ruling that sending migrants on a one-way ticket to Kigali was illegal.

But the government faced a parliamentary battle to do so, with the upper chamber House of Lords, which scrutinises bills, repeatedly sending the proposed legislation back to the lower House of Commons with amendments.

Peers, who have criticised the bill as inadequate, notably wanted a requirement that Rwanda could not be treated as safe until an independent monitoring body said so.

They also wanted an exemption for agents, allies and employees of the UK overseas, including Afghans who fought alongside British armed forces, from being removed.

Europe's highest rights body on Tuesday called on Britain to scrap a controversial plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, after the measure cleared parliament.

"The United Kingdom government should refrain from removing people under the Rwanda policy and reverse the Bill's effective infringement of judicial independence," the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O'Flaherty, said in a statement.

Parliamentary ping pong

Read more on RFI English

Read also:
UK parliament approves Rwanda bill as right-wing rebels back down
Former British prime minister David Cameron, who called Brexit vote, returns as foreign minister
UK says Channel crossings on small boats hit a record this winter