DOMINIC LAWSON: The blockers within the Lords cannot have it each methods

Let nobody doubt the fervour and sincerity with which the Archbishop of Canterbury is preventing the Government’s plans to ship to Rwanda these ‘boat people’ risking their lives to flee the horrors of… northern France. 

He has described the coverage as ‘ungodly’, and informed the House of Lords final week: ‘In the Christian tradition we are told to welcome the stranger. Jesus said “I was a stranger and you invited me in.”’ 

Now, because the Mail revealed on Thursday, The Right Rev Justin Welby has, together with two of his colleagues within the Lords, Baroness Chakrabarti — nominated for a peerage by Jeremy Corbyn — and the previous president of the Supreme Court, Baroness Hale, produced a sequence of amendments designed to thwart the Rwanda plan.

In essence, they suggest that none of it ought to go into regulation, until the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) ‘has advised… that the Republic of Rwanda is a safe place for the processing of asylum and other humanitarian protection claims’.

The level is that when the Supreme Court final yr declared the Rwanda scheme to be in breach of our authorized obligations, it relied closely on proof from the UNHCR, which was quoted 65 instances within the judgment. 

Specifically, the UNHCR had referred the Supreme Court to many instances of Rwanda expelling asylum seekers it had beforehand taken in and criticised the nation’s ‘poor human rights record’.

So, giving the UNHCR a veto over the British Government’s plan to discourage folks (younger males within the overwhelming majority) from paying massive sums of cash to folks smugglers would kill off the Rwanda scheme as soon as and for all. Which is the apparent objective of the Welby/Chakrabarti/Hale amendments.

Yet that is all based mostly on gorgeous hypocrisy. For the UNHCR has itself regularly hailed the Rwandan authorities for its enlightenment and social duty in taking in lots of and hundreds of refugees. In 2021 the High Commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, praised the West African nation for its provide of a ‘safe haven’ for refugees from Libya.

The Right Rev Justin Welby has, together with two of his colleagues within the Lords, produced a sequence of amendments designed to thwart the Rwanda plan

‘I really want to particularly thank the Government of Rwanda… for continued solidarity and generosity, giving hope to vulnerable asylum seekers and refugees in dire need of protection and safety,’ he stated.

And the identical UNHCR press launch effusively quotes the way in which it had been thanked by a migrant household from Somalia, a beneficiary of the scheme Mr Grandi’s group had negotiated with the Rwandan authorities: ‘We were worried about being in detention and never having freedom. I had heard that Rwanda was a safe place and they were welcoming refugees.’

Yet one other current UNHCR doc enthuses: ‘UNHCR Rwanda works to ensure that all refugees have access to life saving and essential healthcare, reproductive health care, HIV prevention and treatment and nutritional well-being. The government of Rwanda has generously adopted a policy of inclusion of refugees into the national health system.’

Presumably this is likely one of the explanation why our personal Divisional court docket had initially accepted the Government’s Rwanda scheme.

Anyway, after the Supreme Court discovered in opposition to it, the Government negotiated a treaty with Rwanda, particularly designed to handle the declare that it would in future expel a few of these arriving from the UK to international locations the place they’d be in danger. Article 10 of that Treaty declares: ‘No relocated individual… shall be removed from Rwanda except to the United Kingdom.’

It is on this foundation that the ‘Safety of Rwanda Bill’ — which handed the Commons — can correctly declare to be addressing the considerations of the Supreme Court. 

And when its opponents within the Lords say the Bill is ‘breaching the rule of law by declaring Rwanda safe when the highest court in the land has found otherwise’, they’re wilfully ignoring this treaty, which itself is a doc beneath worldwide regulation.

An identical argument had been put within the Commons, notably by Labour’s shadow immigration minister, Stephen Kinnock: ‘The Rwanda Bill is an assault on the rule of law and an affront to the separation of powers. These principles are cornerstones of our liberal democracy.’

Kinnock was in impact arguing that Parliament ought to by no means overturn the decision of a court docket. 

There are purely sensible arguments in opposition to the Rwanda Bill — for instance, that it’s an costly enterprise, and may not, even when handed into regulation, impact the removing of very most of the ‘boat people’

He was banjaxed by the Conservative MP Richard Graham, who requested: ‘Just to tease out a little more Labour policy on the specific issue that the honourable gentleman referred to, is he ruling out any consideration of this House determining to overturn the wrongful conviction of hundreds of sub-postmasters simply because that would set a precedent in the relationship between this House and the Courts?’

Completely stumped — not least as a result of Labour has fallen in with the Government’s Bill to overturn judicial verdicts in these lots of of instances — Kinnock blethered: ‘Well, that is an interesting one; I did not have talking about the sub-postmasters on my bingo card today.’

There appear to be many MPs and friends who would strive to attract a distinction between passing a regulation to overturn the convictions of all of the prosecuted sub-postmasters (on the threat of together with one or two who may even have been responsible) and passing a regulation which suggests that the Supreme Court – gasp! – may probably be mistaken.

Among these apparently shocked by such a suggestion is the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Carlile, who fulminated that the Safety of Rwanda Bill is ‘a step towards totalitarianism… this is the Government elevating itself to an unacceptable level above the law, above our much-admired Supreme Court.’

Yet, because the distinguished jurist Lord Faulks factors out, there have been three events when Parliament certainly reversed choices by the Supreme Court. 

The most notable was after the Supreme Court, in a unanimous judgment in 2020, allowed an attraction by Gerry Adams in opposition to his conviction in 1975 for making an attempt to flee from lawful custody. This was a judgment which invited the previous Sinn Fein chief and others detained between 1970 and 1974 to hunt compensation for illegal detention or wrongful conviction.

The nation’s main political think-tank, Policy Exchange, then printed a outstanding paper, setting out a compelling case that the Supreme Court was mistaken (it had judged that Adams had been unlawfully detained as a result of the order for his detention had not been thought of personally by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, however ‘only’ by a Minister of State).

Eight members of the House of Lords endorsed the Policy Exchange paper entitled ‘Reversing the Supreme Court’s judgment in R v Adams’. One of these friends calling on Parliament to overturn the decision of the Supreme Court was…Lord Carlile.

As the co-author of that paper, Richard Ekins KC (Oxford University’s Professor of regulation and constitutional authorities) now observes of the Safety of Rwanda Bill and the brand new treaty between our international locations: ‘Objections that [these] threaten the rule of law, or are seeking to use law to change facts are misconceived. 

‘To insist that judges must have the final say would displace Parliament’s correct position as the last word decision-maker in our structure.’

Of course, each Houses are required to go the Bill; and the Lords, if it accepts the amendments within the identify of the Archbishop of Canterbury and others, will sabotage the measure already handed by the Commons. 

Entirely unrelated although it might be, I believe the pressure of the Archbishop’s attraction in debate can have been weakened by the revelation that an Afghan asylum seeker and convicted intercourse offender needed for a horrifying acid assault on a lady and two kids had been allowed to stay on this nation due to a spurious declare to have transformed to Christianity.

Theology apart, there are purely sensible arguments in opposition to the Rwanda scheme — for instance, that it’s an costly enterprise, and may not, even when handed into regulation, impact the removing of very most of the ‘boat people’. 

But it could be a deterrent to these paying many hundreds of euros to the folks smugglers — and, because the National Crime Agency has stated, some type of deterrent is now required. However ungodly.