UK condemns court decision to block Rwanda deportation, will not leave convention

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain has no plans to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, but the Strasbourg court which enforces it overstepped its powers in blocking the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda, deputy prime minister Dominic Raab said on Thursday.

The government was thwarted in its attempt to send a handful of migrants on a charter plane more than 4,000 miles (6,4000 km) to Rwanda on Tuesday after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) stepped in to issue injunctions, cancelling the flight.

Raab, who is also Britain’s justice secretary, criticised the Strasbourg-based court for essentially blocking the flight, part of a policy which London says will stem the flow of migrants making dangerous trips across the English Channel from France.

Raab said the flights would take place despite criticism from the United Nations, the leadership of the Church of England and Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, who has privately described the plan as “appalling” according to media reports.

“Our plans involve staying within the Convention, the European Convention. It is also important the Strasbourg court reflects and stays faithful to its mandate as part of the convention,” he told BBC television.

“The Strasbourg court itself has said for many years that there’s no binding power of injunction. And then later on they said: ‘Well actually, we can issue such binding injunctions.’ It is not grounded in the Convention,” Raab told Sky News.

The European court’s late intervention had led some in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party to call for Britain to pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights altogether.

Challenged over death threats on social media to human rights lawyers, Raab said they were unacceptable but Britain’s Human Rights Act had led to an “industry” of lawyers promoting “elastic interpretations” of the law on behalf of their clients.

He added that the government could not give a fixed date for when it would be able to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.

(Reporting by Muvija M; writing by David Milliken; editing by Elizabeth Piper)