LONDON (Reuters) -The British government on Thursday was given permission to appeal to the UK’s top court a decision that its highly contested plan to fly some asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful.
Under an initial 140 million-pound ($180 million) deal struck last year, Britain planned to send tens of thousands of asylum seekers who arrive on its shores a distance of more than 4,000 miles (6,400 km) to the East African country.
It led to a protracted legal fight over the scheme, with some opposition politicians and civil rights groups criticising it as inhumane, cruel and ineffective.
Last month the Court of Appeal ruled the plan was unlawful because Rwanda could not be trusted to process asylum seekers’ claims fairly.
In a split judgment, two of the three judges said migrants were at risk of refoulement – forced removal to countries where they would be at risk of harm.
On Thursday, the government was given permission by the Court of Appeal to appeal to the UK Supreme Court.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had previously said he would challenge the verdict, saying he “fundamentally” disagreed with the ruling.
The government hopes its Rwandan deal would deter asylum seekers from making the dangerous crossing from France to the southern coast of England on small, often unseaworthy boats.
Last year, a record 45,755 people came to Britain in small boats across the Channel, mainly from France. More than 12,000 have arrived this year, a rate similar to 2022.
The numbers are relatively small compared with the more than 600,000 who migrated to Britain legally last year. But the arrivals are an embarrassment to the Conservative government which promised to “take back control” of the country’s borders when Britain officially left the European Union in 2020.
It is also costing the country some 3 billion pounds a year to accommodate them while their asylum claims are addressed.
The first planned Rwanda deportation flight was blocked a year ago in a last-minute ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, which imposed an injunction preventing any deportations until the conclusion of legal action in Britain.
Asylum seekers from several countries and human rights groups are challenging the government’s deportation plan in the courts.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin, Andrew MacAskill, Muvija M and Elizabeth Piper in LondonEditing by Kylie MacLellan and Matthew Lewis)