The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has been chastised by a former UK Supreme Court judge for issuing an eleventh-hour decision on the UK government’s Rwanda immigration scheme.
Lord Sumption said today that the decision was made behind closed doors – and by an anonymous judge – in Strasbourg, which he described as “extremely unsatisfactory.”
The senior judge, who sat on the UK Supreme Court for six years from 2012 to 2018, believes there are “grounds” to explore “changing” the European Convention on Human Rights’ operation.
But, he claimed, doing so so soon after the Rwanda intervention was ‘stupid.’
He also stated that it was not a cause to abandon the convention, which Britain helped to build after WWII.
His remarks follow a barrage of criticism from Conservative lawmakers and ministers over the court’s decision to impose an eleventh-hour injunction, essentially grounding the first cross-Channel migrant deportation flight to Rwanda.
Suella Braverman, the state’s attorney general, joined the chorus of critics of the court today.
‘British people should decide who can and cannot stay in our nation,’ Ms Braverman, a former practicing barrister, said.
She also expressed “serious misgivings” about the UK’s relationship with the European Court of Human Rights, which is unrelated to the European Union but to which the UK remained a member after Brexit.
‘I think all of that is quite unsatisfactory,’ Lord Sumption said to LBC when asked about the court’s ruling and the fact that it was made behind closed doors. However, this is not a sufficient basis to abandon the human rights treaty.
‘There are, I believe, reasons for at least modifying the operation of the human rights convention, but it is absurd to do so on the basis of a single, provisional decision, because it is not a decision on the merits of the Rwanda scheme, but rather on how to hold the fort until it is properly decided in July.’
‘I don’t think it’s a sound basis for revising the human rights treaty,’ says the author, adding that “there are much larger difficulties that should be examined over a much broader range of issues over a much longer period of time than the previous week.”
He claimed that the court’s ability to grant interim injunctions, such as the one given by the court on Tuesday that essentially grounded the UK’s Rwanda aircraft, was something the court ‘gave themselves,’ rather than something written into the convention.
‘I think the problem is the human rights convention requires the court to decide whether it is desirable to depart from human rights law in the interest of some other important interests – for example, the suppression of crime or the control of public finances or something like that,’ he said when asked if he thought the system had a ‘democratic deficit.’
He claimed that the agreement authorized governments to deviate from these principles in the public interest.
‘These are classic political concerns – do we want more privacy and less effective crime prevention – people will disagree on that – how do we overcome these differences in a democracy?’ remarked Lord Sumption.
‘We do it through our elected representatives, not by handing power to judges who, quite correctly, have no political accountability.’
Following Tuesday’s judgment, Ms Braverman said it’s ‘time to finish Brexit and let the British people decide who can and cannot stay in our nation.’
‘This is still a matter under discussion in Government, but I have serious qualms about our relationship with the European Court of Human Rights,’ she told the Daily Express.
‘The British people voted in the EU referendum to reclaim control of our laws.
‘They are rightfully perplexed as to why European judges can still obstruct our immigration controls.’
‘It’s time to finish Brexit and let the British people decide who can and cannot stay in our nation,’ she said.
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, has previously branded the court’s ruling as politically motivated, while Dominic Raab, the Justice Secretary, has argued the injunction should not have been issued.
Some Conservative MPs have called for the UK to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the text interpreted by the Strasbourg court.
No 10 and Ms Braverman have not ruled this out, but it looks doubtful that the Government would choose to take such an extreme step.
Mr Raab has stated that the UK will adhere to the treaty, but new rules may allow the government to virtually disregard interim restrictions issued by the Strasbourg court.
The government intends to repeal the Human Rights Act and replace it with a new Bill of Rights, which will incorporate the ECHR in domestic law.
The Government has previously stated that it “will not be deterred from doing the right thing, we will not be put off by the inevitable last-minute legal challenges.”
However, ongoing court battles have created uncertainty as to when any further attempts to fly asylum seekers to the African country will be made.