RWANDA LATEST: Judges have just granted permission for the controversial asylum removals scheme to go be challenged at the Court of Appeal. This decision means NO FLIGHTS will be leaving the UK soon. Judges at the High Court have ruled that the migrants who challenged their prospective transfer to Rwanda can appeal against the entire scheme on some of the core grounds - including whether Rwanda's word can be trusted.

RWANDA legal challenge latest. Later than I had hoped due to other commitments. Today was an important day because we got to hear the government’s full legal arguments for the first time. Some takeaways: First off, Lord David Pannick QC is leading for the government (yes the very same). One of his lines of defence is quite simple amid the 100,000,000s of documents in this case.

Rwanda latest: Significant intervention in the High Court today from the UN’s Refugee Agency, UNHCR. It’s said that a) Rwanda isn’t safe for the plan b) the Home Office hasn’t properly looked into the situation c) people sent there could be sent back to nations that torture The UN argues that the Home Office plan breaks both UK law and the international law that makes up the Refugee Convention - and it says that is “regrets” that it is having to warn one of the founders of that global treaty that its actions are wrong. Detailed thread follows:

Rwanda flights legal challenge: We’re back in court for the afternoon’s evidence and submissions. Raza Husain QC is continuing to make the challengers’ main arguments against the controversial policy. Here’s a summary of the challenge the government is facing.
In short, Home Secretary Priti Patel (or her successor if she leaves post under the new PM) is being challenged on a range of different legal points which make the Rwanda case unusually complicated.

Hello from the High Court for the start of the Migrants to Rwanda legal challenge. This hearing - which goes on all week - is the beginning of the court’s review of whether the government’s plan to send cross-Channel migrants to the African nation is legal. Raza Hussain QC is starting for the claimants - a combination of individual migrants and a number of NGOs challenging the Home Office’s plan. He tells the judges: “Forgive me for not introducing everybody.” There are at least 40 barristers in court which is possibly a record…

Good morning from the High Court: Starting now - the major legal challenge to the Home Office’s proposed despatching of asylum seekers to Rwanda, first flight purportedly due to leave next Tuesday. So far: Around 100 people have been told they might be put on a flight. Three of those, taking part in today’s action, have now been told by the Home Office, they won’t be sent to Rwanda at this time.

Home Affairs Committee: Ukraine's UK ambassador Vadym Prystaiko tells MPs there have been no end of "bureaucratic hassles" for years for his fellow citizens coming to the UK. His own wife couldn't initially get a visa to join him, despite him being his nation's representative... More from the committee: Refugee and immigration law experts telling MPs that Ukrainians can't hop on a plane. The airlines won't let them for one simple reason: Carriers would face fines from the UK government for allowing 🇺🇦 citizens to arrive without a valid visa.

Well this is interesting: @tomburgis - author of Kleptopia - how dirty money is conquering the world - has just won the defamation action brought against him by one of the companies that features in his rather gripping investigation: Mr Justice Nicklin threw out the case this morning at a very early stage in the whole scheme of how defamation cases work. He then refused the claimant permission to appeal & told them to pay Tom Burgis' and publisher HarperCollins' costs.

NEW CONFIRMED information about Liverpool bomber Emad Al Swealmeen: There was a six year gap between him losing his asylum appeal and then appealing again under a new European-style name. What the Home Office did to remove or manage him is unclear - it won't tell us. Thread: Information from court records obtained by the BBC:
1) Al-Swealmeen's application for asylum to the Home Office resulted in a refusal - and he challenged this before a First-Tier Tribunal in 2014. That court reviews challenges against Home Office immigration decisions.

Home Office minister Tom Pursglove confirms to MPs only *FIVE* cross-channel small boat migrants deemed to have no right to be in the UK have been returned to Europe this year. (Previous to Brexit, when the UK was part of an EU returns deal, 289 small boat migrants were removed.) He's giving evidence at the mo to Home Affairs Committee: parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/94…

This is what you need to know about why Wayne Couzens got a whole life order for the murder of Sarah Everard. It may feel instinctively obvious to us, the public, but there is still law to be followed by judges when they decide to lock someone up for ever. Thread: Bit of history first: When Parliament abolished the death penalty almost 60 years ago, it promised the British people that the worst of the very worst offenders would be locked up in jail for the rest of their lives.

Anti-islam activist and founder of the English Defence League Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, has been found by the High Court to have libelled a Syrian teenage refugee and ordered to pay him £100,000 in damages. Judgment now online: judiciary.uk/judgments/hija…

Some nuggets of statistical joy in relation to this story today... bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi… Home Office says the system is collapsing - Home Sec said it's broken. The numbers are worth bearing in mind to assist in understanding those comments. Currently, asylum applications are around a THIRD of the record set in 2002 - they've been falling for years.

Judicial Review: Government to consult on how Parliament could in the future limit the right to challenge some decisions taken by ministers. What's a judicial review? It's the right to go to a judge and say that a minister or public body has done something wrong - or maybe failed to act - in accordance with the law.

Bizarre and chaotic end tonight to the protest that began in Parly Sq. Some hold-outs made it round a loop of Westminster, Soho, part of Theatreland, back to Parliament, down to Elephant & Castle and back to Vauxhall... long after most had gone home. They kept moving to avoid being fined. As the group passed through Elephant, causing a traffic jam, a bloke in his 50s, chuffing away on a massive reefer, started shouting at me that I was an "undercover cop on a Boris bike".

Judgment coming NOW in the challenge against the Metropolitan Police's ban imposed on the Sarah Everard vigil #reclaimthesestreets Mr Justice Holgate: This vigil is being organised following the tragic death of Sarah Everard. It's being organised at Clapham Common. Their objective is to hold a vigil safely and lawfully particularly in the context of the pandemic. Two of the claimants are local councillors.

Ok ... legal challenge to the Met Police's ban on the Reclaim These Streets / Sarah Everard vigil is now beginning. Tom Hickman QC will be making the firest submissions for the organisers of tomorrow's proposed event. Mr Justice Holgate begins by saying that he and all others taking part in the hearing express their sympathies to the family of Sarah Everard.

Sarah Everard / Reclaim These Streets vigil: We're waiting at the High Court to see if the organisers' challenge to the Met Police's ban on tomorrow's event, under Covid regulations, will lead to a full hearing in court. The challenge could be dealt with "on the papers" - so a judge reads the case for and against and gives their view. It could be a full hearing in open court. Or it could be resolved out of court, if Scotland Yard were to change its mind.

BREAKING: British judge REFUSES to approve Julian Assange's extradition to the USA because of his severe mental health problems and likely suicide.

https://twitter.com/BBCDomC/status/1346048339217960960

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser rules that while US prosecutors met the tests for Mr Assange to be extradited for trial, the US is incapable of preventing him from attempting to take his own life - and therefore extradition would be oppressive.

Julian Assange judgment now full swing - some difficulties with the virtual link now resolved. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser at the Old Bailey is giving her decision on the US extradition request. Outlining evidence of his self harm and suicidal thoughts. #AssangeExtradition DJ Baraitser says half a razor blade was once found in his cell. "The overall impression is of a depressed and sometimes despairing man fearful for his future."

Less than 350 HOURS now from full-flavour Brexit. Here are the facts about how the UK will crash out of a host of security, criminal justice and crime-fighting tools keeping you safe. Police will lose lose many of these even if there is a deal: bbc.co.uk/news/explainer… The UK will be ejected from the European Arrest Warrant (although it does have its critics); it will have a totally unclear relationship with Europol and its joined-up cross-border organised crime investigations.