Lawyers prepare for legal battles on behalf of individual asylum seekers challenging removal to east Africa
Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation bill will become law after peers eventually backed down on amending it, opening the way for legal battles over the potential removal of dozens of people seeking asylum.
After a marathon battle of “ping pong” over the key legislation between the Commons and the Lords, the bill finally passed when opposition and crossbench peers gave way on Monday night.
The bill is expected to be granted royal assent on Tuesday. Home Office sources said they have already identified a group of asylum seekers with weak legal claims to remain in the UK who will be part of the first tranche to be sent to east Africa in July.
Sunak has put the bill, which would deport asylum seekers who arrive in the UK by irregular means to Kigali, at the centre of his attempts to stop small boats crossing the Channel.
Please be specific about this being the UK’s democracy and not democracy in general. In Canada for example courts are stronger and it would be much more difficult (albeit not impossible) for our Parliament to do something like this.
I don’t think the judges would like it, but what recourse would they have if the government passed an act such as this in Canada? I could see a judge saying this act breaches X treaties, but then just withdraw from the treaties (edit: which this act is likely a precursor to).
The system of parliamentary liberal democracy is an inherently flawed system.
In Germany judgements by the constitutional court are immediately applicable law. They can and do just say “this law is not to be applied” and the wider executive will do it no matter what the parliament or chancellery thinks about it.
They indeed are the most powerful institution in the country which is balanced by them not being able to do anything if noone files a case, as well as them not having any enforcement powers of their own. Ushers is as far as it goes.
Germany, from my understanding, is a really different beast from most countries in how it works thanks to the East-West reunification.
That said, it sounds similar to the US Supreme Court, is that right? What are the checks and balances on this court? What’s to stop the bad actor work as seen in America?
The constitutional order didn’t change with reunification: The east split up into states, which then simultaneously but individually joined the western federation. Pretty much the same thing as 1957, when Saarland joined the federation.
As to why we have better judges – part of it is cultural, but a lot institutional. They aren’t appointed for life but 12 year terms or until they’re 68, which ever comes first, they get elected with 2/3rd majorities, half by parliament, half by the Bundesrat (i.e. by the state governments). Oh: You actually need to be qualified: Either have passed the 2nd state examination in law (which qualifies you to be a regular judge), or be a professor of law. The net result is that the judges are first and foremost jurists, and very good ones at that, not party hacks. It also helps that the constitutional court is not an appellate court, they only do law review, not case review.
In America? Honor system. No really, that’s our whole checks and balances thing. Nobody can remove the court, but they can choose it, pack it, and most importantly everyone has the ability to in unison ignore it. The courts have no armies, police, or jails, that’s the executive branch.
The UK system has the concept that Parliament is the ultimate authority of matters. So courts there interpret laws but are unable to reject them.
Canada on the other hand has a constitution which lists different rights that people have, and Parliament has no authority to take away some of these rights. There is some controversial leeway with some of the rights where Parliament, using the ‘Notwithstanding clause’, is allowed to temporarily ignore some sections of the Constitution, but they have to keep renewing that every several years or else it expires, and it can’t be applied to some rights like voting rights.
Regarding this specific law I’m unsure of whether there’s anything in our constitution that would prevent deporting irregular migrants to a third country.
Just reading it - the constitution of Canada is mostly about land and parliament setup more than anything else (though Constitution Act, 1960 & 1965 are kick-ass).
The rest is “unwritten” and “interpreted by courts” - exactly like the UK.
I’m referring to the the Charter of Rights and Freedoms from 1982. But yes there is still a lot of unwritten rules too like the UK.