Asylum Aid challenges UK Home Office Rwanda Policy in High Court

Asylum Aid, an organisation that provides legal advice and representation on behalf of asylum seekers and refugees has filed a claim in the High Court challenging the Home Office’s ‘Safety of Rwanda’ guidance (Policy).

The charity argues that the Home Office’s Policy unlawfully instructs decision makers to ignore compelling evidence put forward by individuals showing that they would be at individual risk of being sent from Rwanda to another country where they face a risk of persecution, torture or even death. The Policy, Asylum Aid believes, is unlawful and misinterprets the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024, which was given Royal Assent on 25 April.

Asylum Aid argues that section 4 of the Act allows decision makers to consider the risk of Rwanda sending an individual to another country where there is evidence that they would be at risk of torture, death, or other serious human rights violations, when considering any challenge to their removal based on compelling evidence of individual risk. This is an important safeguard which Parliament included in the Act to prevent serious human rights violations. The Home Office does not agree with Asylum Aid’s reading of the Act and has refused to amend its Policy to reflect this, therefore, Asylum Aid has proceeded with a judicial review.

The government has made it sufficiently clear that it intends to act in haste and potentially remove large numbers of vulnerable individuals, including survivors of trafficking and torture to Rwanda as quickly as they can. It is greatly concerning that the Home Office is making decisions that impact Asylum Aid’s clients and many others in their position without considering whether there is a real risk that an individual can be removed from Rwanda to another country, in violation of their human rights.

The Policy also has an impact on other connected decisions by the Home Office, including on requests for extensions of time to make legal representations and on the detention of individuals pending their removal. Therefore, it is critical that the issued raised by Asylum Aid are resolved urgently.

In this case, Asylum Aid is represented by Tessa Gregory, Carolin Ott and Stephanie Hill at law firm Leigh Day.