LONDON (AP) — The UK law for deport asylum seekers should not apply in Northern Ireland because parts of it violate human rights protections, a Belfast judge ruled on Monday.
The Illegal Migration Law was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights and undermines the rights provided for in Good Friday peace agreement 1998, said Supreme Court Justice Michael Humphreys.
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Rishi Sunak said the government would appeal the ruling.
The law is central to Sunak controversial plan deport some migrants to Rwanda, but it was not immediately clear what impact the decision would have on that initiative.
Although the Prime Minister’s office said the decision would not derail or delay deportations from Rwanda that the UK government says will begin in July, a lawyer whose client prevailed in bringing the case said the law would not apply in Northern Ireland.
“This is a huge thorn in the side of the government,” said lawyer Sinéad Marmion. “There is a huge hurdle in the way of them actually being able to implement this in Northern Ireland now.”
The law was created to deter thousands of migrants who risk their lives crossing the English Channel apply for asylum in the UK, raising the prospect of being sent to the East African country. It allows those who arrived illegally to be deported to a “safe” third country where their claims can be processed.
Although the UK High Court canceled flights to Rwanda as unsafe, a subsequent bill declared the country safe, and this makes it more difficult for migrants to challenge deportation. It also allows the UK government to ignore European Court of Human Rights injunctions seeking to block removals.
Humphreys found that parts of the law violated human rights protections in a post-Brexit agreement signed between the United Kingdom and the European Union last year. This agreement, known as the Windsor Framework, stated that it should honor the peace agreement that largely ended the The problems — 30 years of violence between British trade unionists and Irish nationalists.
The leader of the Democratic Unionist Party said the UK government had been repeatedly warned that its immigration policy would not apply in Northern Ireland because it was incompatible with the post-Brexit deal with the EU.
“While today’s judgment does not come as a surprise, it belies the government’s irrational claims that the Rwanda scheme could equally extend to Northern Ireland,” said DUP leader Gavin Robinson.
Sunak said the Good Friday Agreement was not intended to be “expanded to cover issues such as illegal migration”.
The law has been challenged by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and a 16-year-old Iranian boy who crossed the English Channel last year without his parents and sought asylum in the UK. arrested or killed if he is sent back to Iran.
The judge temporarily suspended the decision until the end of this month.
___
