Defiant European judges are preparing to fight back over the UK’s plans to ignore injunctions blocking the removal of migrants. The Government has agreed to amend its Illegal Migration Bill following pressure from Tory backbenchers to allow ministers to ignore Rule 39 orders from the European Court of Human Rights in some instances.
The so-called “pyjama injunctions” were used at the 11th hour by a European judge to ground the first flight to Rwanda.
But the Telegraph cited senior Strasbourg sources as warning the plans would “undermine” individuals’ rights and freedoms under the European Convention on Human Rights.
A European court source told the newspaper: “Under the Convention system, interim measures [Rule 39] play a vital role in avoiding irreversible situations that would prevent national courts and/or the court from properly examining convention complaints and, where appropriate, securing to the applicant the practical and effective benefit of the convention rights asserted.
“A failure by a respondent state to comply with interim measures undermines the effectiveness of the right of individual application guaranteed by Article 34 and the State’s formal undertaking in Article one to protect the rights and freedoms set forth in the convention.”
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick said he expected “strong support” for the legislation from Tory MPs.
He said Mr Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman wanted “the strongest, most robust legislation possible so that we can stop the boats”.
He said: “I’m very confident that we have strong support from Conservative Members of Parliament and as soon as we do get it through we will be putting it into action so we can secure the borders and give the British public the fair and robust asylum system that they want and deserve.”
The apparent compromise comes after Mr Sunak failed to guarantee he could achieve his plan to “stop the boats” by the next election, and said it “won’t happen overnight”.
He had pledged to “stop the boats” as one of the five main priorities of his leadership.
But asked in an interview with Conservative Home whether he was confident he could do that by the next election, the Prime Minister said: “I’ve always said this is not something that is easy; it is a complicated problem where there’s no single, simple solution that will fix it.”
The Government’s Illegal Migration Bill is aimed at changing the law to make it clear people arriving in the UK illegally will not be able to remain in the country.
They will either be sent back to their home country or to a nation like Rwanda with which the UK has a deal, although legal challenges mean no flights carrying migrants have taken off for Kigali.
More than 5,000 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel this year.
Home Office figures published on Tuesday confirmed the provisional number of people making the journey to date in 2023 stands at 5,049.
