Here are the amendments to the Rwanda Bill so far. The Jenrick/Cash/Braverman ones would further (greatly) restrict the scope for legal challenge publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill… Removals could only be blocked on grounds of “bad faith” relating to decisions about fitness to travel - not on grounds of unreasonableness, exceeding legal powers, or breach of individual rights or international law

2023: a year in cocktails (🍸 🧵):

January: Aviation
(gin, lemon, maraschino, violette) February: Happy Friday
(gin, elderflower liqueur, pink grapefruit)

Rwanda: thoughts on latest developments. The Supreme Court found the scheme was unlawful because of the risk that asylum seekers would be sent to places where they would be ill-treated. This breached the principle of “non-refoulement” in international & national law /1 Does the new treaty make a difference? Here’s the text Presumably it makes *some* difference. There are significant guarantees & protections, notably Art 10 - “assurances of treatment in Rwanda”, esp 10(3) assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/656f51d3…

What next on Rwanda? Some questions still unanswered:

1 Will the government be able to agree the revised treaty with Rwanda it promised to “finalise” and “ratify without delay”? It takes 2 to tango. What will Rwanda demand in exchange? Presumably more money, at least 2 What will the “emergency bill” say? How will the PM satisfy both those in his party/govt (notably Braverman) who want to override ECHR & other international law, and those (like Cleverly) who think that’s unnecessary & damaging?

For the sake of putting (at most) a few hundred people on a plane to a place recently found to be unsafe by our highest court [not a foreign court]:

- she wants the UK to breach every relevant international treaty on torture, mis-treatment, detention or fair process /1 - she wants to remove *every right of legal challenge* in the UK courts - even if (say) Home Office officials make wholly flawed, capricious or irrational decisions; or the wrong person is accidentally detained or put on a plane … /2

Rwanda: all the fault of the lawyers? I did an interview for R4 PM yesterday at the end of which @EvanHD asked me: how would I respond to the accusation that it’s all the fault of pesky lawyers getting in the way of elected politicians? /1 (It was a pre-record which was binned & replaced by a later live interview because the PM had made his announcement. But I thought it was a good Q.) My answer: first, judges interpret & apply the law - that’s their job /2

Hm not sure the discussion QUITE did justice to the subtleties. Let’s try this:

EU laws will have been considered, to a greater or lesser extent, by:

elected UK MEPs
UK Ministers in the Council
UK govt officials in working groups etc
UK Parliament scrutiny committees /1

https://twitter.com/campbellclaret/status/1656894875885764608

They will then either:

(in the case of EU Regulations) have been directly applicable in UK law with no UK parliamentary input, or

(in the case of EU Directives) have been implemented by Act of Parliament or (more commonly) by regulations with limited parliamentary scrutiny /2

*OBVIOUSLY* the removal of the sunset is welcome. Repeal of 600 laws in one go is still a huge change (and could have been trumpeted as a major Brexit "benefit" if the government hadn't so absurdly raised expectations of a complete "bonfire of EU red tape") /1

https://twitter.com/bricksilk/status/1656579611868667905

There will still be no chance for parliament to consider the detail of those 600 laws or what their repeal will mean in practice. But at least we now know what they are /2

Repeating some of my thoughts on the #IllegalMigrationBill as it begins its House of Lords stages. It is undoubtedly designed to reduce human rights protections for migrants, disapplying aspects of the Human Rights Act … /1 The government accepts the Bill may well breach a whole toxic soup of ECHR rights (life, torture, slavery, fair trial, detention, family & private life, discrimination, right to a remedy) /2

Good piece as usual from @JoshuaRozenberg on the Home Secretary’s amendment to the Illegal Migration Bill dealing with Strasbourg interim measures. The amendment is a bit odd …

https://twitter.com/JoshuaRozenberg/status/1650367744469094400

On the one hand it says that, where the Strasbourg court issues interim measures, the HS can decide that this displaces her duty under the Bill to remove someone - arguably giving such measures a status in domestic law they don’t currently have /2

Maude is worth listening to on this stuff. I agree it would be wrong to base major reform on a single case (Raab). An independent review found a Minister’s behaviour had crossed the line. The review wasn’t about the quality of civil service advice theguardian.com/politics/2023/… Not all civil servants are brilliant. And in my experience CS leaders are always up for reform. But I don’t believe the narrative around civil servants “blocking” govt policy. We got the Brexit ministers wanted (and wouldn’t have got it without the CS) /2

Clause 49 is not the least extraordinary provision of the Illegal Migration Bill. Coyly described as a “placeholder” allowing the Home Secretary to make regulations “about” interim orders of the European Court of Human Rights …/1 It’s clearly intended to allow the government to ignore such orders. Such regulations can’t of course disapply the UK’s international law obligations under the ECHR. So once again it is setting up a clash. /2

Some reactions to the Illegal Migration Bill. It seems rather desperate. The Home Secretary says it’s necessary because “an activist blob of civil servants, left-wing lawyers and the Labour Party blocked us” publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill… First: can it work? Legislation is not a magic wand 🪄. It can’t magic up resources to take quicker, more effective decisions; or facilities to detain people; or places to send them; or planes to put them on

Some “rules” (of various kinds):

1 Civil servants must impartially serve the government of the day. [They can - obviously - hold personal political views. And vote.] 2 There are rules restricting serving CSs (especially senior ones) from actively engaging in politics

3 The most senior CSs must consult the Advisory Cttee on Business Appointments and get approval from the PM before announcing or taking up a new role

I’m not an apologist for the Privileges Committee but:
1 They’re investigating because the House of Commons told them to
2 They’re not relying on the Sue Gray investigation, they’re doing their own /1 3 The Committee apparently has evidence (including witness statements & BJ texts) not available to Gray /2

Some worthwhile commentary on the Windsor Framework I’ve come across. A thread with some links. instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/wind… ukandeu.ac.uk/the-windsor-fr…

My summary of recent governments’ uneasy relationship with the constitutional, institutional and legal framework (from my lecture @middletemple):

1 They think the courts have gone too far & should back off from intervening in government decision-making 2 They don’t like being challenged by lawyers, especially “activist” or “lefty” ones

3 They don’t like the Human Rights Act

4 They’ve been prepared to break international law

After fuller consideration of the Retained EU Law Bill, my summary would be: it's a very bad way to legislate. It's nothing to do with the merits of Brexit: that's irrelevant, we've left

https://twitter.com/SirJJKC/status/1572962650518130688

We did so with decades of law from our time as a member of the EU. To avoid gaps or legal uncertainty, Parliament sensibly decided to keep that law, and said it should continue to be interpreted in the same way, until the govt/Parliament could decide what it wanted to change

Lots of clever people are commenting on the Bill of Rights Bill but here are some first reactions. In no way does the Bill “expand” rights protection. It creates no new rights. publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill… “Great weight” is to be given to the right to freedom of speech, but if that is to mean anything at all, it is likely to be at the expense of other rights (especially Art 8/privacy).

Useful bundle of joy.
Some reactions:
It’s a quite extraordinary Bill. Goes much further than 2020 Internal Market Bill. Turns off/neutralises great chunks of the Protocol - customs rules, state aids, role of ECJ, enforcement, implementation, dispute resolution provisions. /1

https://twitter.com/antonspisak/status/1536393443991293952

AND gives wide powers to Ministers to turn off even more of the Protocol by regulations - almost all of it, even including Art 18 on democratic consent. /2

Still seeing some quite misleading stuff about covid FPNs.
1. Breach of the relevant covid regulations was a criminal offence (not “civil” or something else). 2. No doubt breaches varied in their seriousness, but there’s no basis for treating the whole category of offences as “minor” or “technical”. (That’s certainly not how they were presented at the time.)