Wednesday 15 June 2022 10:19 PM Dominic Raab looks into whether ministers can IGNORE last-minute injunctions ... trends now
Ministers may ignore future rulings from the European Court of Human Rights amid fury over its role in blocking the first Rwanda migrant flight.
Justice Secretary Dominic Raab is examining whether it will be possible to disregard last-minute injunctions from the Strasbourg court in cases already examined by British judges.
Home Secretary Priti Patel was granted permission to go ahead with the removal flight to Rwanda this week by both the High Court and Court of Appeal. The UK’s Supreme Court also refused to intervene.
Justice Secretary Dominic Raab (pictured on Tuesday outside 10 Downing Street) is examining whether it will be possible to disregard last-minute injunctions from the Strasbourg court in cases already examined by British judges
But the chartered Boeing 767 was grounded shortly before take-off on Tuesday evening following the late-night intervention by an anonymous judge at the European court.
A government source last night noted that its injunctions were ‘not binding’ and said many signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, which the court interprets, routinely turned a blind eye to its rulings.
‘Pulling out of the ECHR completely would be a massive call, but there is scope for looking again at how we treat out-of-hours injunctions from Strasbourg,’ the source said.
‘People talk about the UK’s role in creating the court after the Second World War and that is right. But the way that charter has been interpreted in recent years has become very elastic and taken it a long way from its original aims.’
The Home Secretary yesterday said she was ‘disappointed and surprised’ by Strasbourg’s decision to overrule British courts but told MPs it was inevitable there would be legal challenges to her policy.
A Cabinet source described the ruling by the court, which is part of the Council of Europe and completely separate from the European Union, as ‘maddening’.
Miss Patel last night vowed to press ahead with the Rwanda policy – and revealed a series of further flights were in the planning stages. But it is understood that no final decision will be made on booking a new flight until the full implications of the ruling are clear.
It remains unknown whether it was broad enough to bar all migrants from being removed. The row came as:
Attorney general Suella Braverman refused to rule out Britain quitting the ECHR, saying the public had voted to ‘take back control of our borders’; Tory MPs lined up to call for full withdrawal from the court, with one branding its intervention ‘despicable’; Miss Patel condemned the court’s secrecy – it has yet to provide the Home Office with the full grounds for its bombshell decision; Ministers voiced anger at the court’s refusal to identify the judge involved in Tuesday night’s case amid rumours the decision may have been taken by a Russian; Hundreds more migrants crossed the Channel in small boats, some landing in Devon; Migrants due on Tuesday night’s flight were told they would be tagged so they could be removed at a later date;
