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Deportation Showdown: UK Cracks Down on ECHR Migrant Appeals

by DD Report

March 14, 2025

ECHR Deportation Curbs: New Rules Target Migrant Appeals

key takeaways

Mligrants using the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to avoid deportation is a complex and politically charged topic. Here's a breakdown of the key aspects:

Key Points:

ECHR and Deportation:The ECHR, particularly articles concerning the right to life (Article 2) and the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment (Article 3), can be invoked in deportation cases.

Migrants may argue that deportation would violate these rights, for example, if they face persecution or a risk of harm in their country of origin.

Government Efforts:The UK government has expressed a desire to curb the use of the ECHR to prevent deportations, arguing that it is being misused to frustrate legitimate removals.The government has been working on ways to make it harder for people to use ECHR claims to stop deportations. This has been seen within the Rwanda plan, and the associated legislation that has been passed.

Legal and Political Challenges:Any attempt to restrict the use of the ECHR in deportation cases faces legal and political challenges. Human rights organizations argue that such restrictions would undermine fundamental rights and protections.

There is also the fact that the UK is a signatory to the ECHR, and therefore is bound by it.

The Rwanda Plan: A key example of this is the governments plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. This plan has faced many legal challenges, many of which are based on the ECHR.Legislation has been passed by the UK parliament, that designates Rwanda as a safe country, in an attempt to allow the plan to go forward.

In essence, the situation involves a tension between the government's desire to control immigration and the legal protections afforded by human rights law.

The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, is evaluating how immigration courts use Article 8 of the ECHR, which ensures the right to family life, to ensure that it is interpreted in a "sensible" and "proportionate" way. She has commissioned research into how other European countries, such as Denmark, apply the ruling, citing anecdotal indications that other courts adopt a stricter approach to similar legislation.

Any new laws or changes to guidance that may result from the review are expected to be set out in a White Paper on immigration that will be published in spring or early summer.

It follows the disclosure by The Telegraph of multiple cases where migrants and foreign criminals have won the right to remain in the UK or halt their deportations, often by citing Article 8 of the ECHR.They include an Albanian criminal who avoided deportation after claiming his son had an aversion to foreign chicken nuggets, and a Pakistani paedophile who was jailed for child sex offences but escaped removal from the UK as it would be “unduly harsh” on his own children.

There are a record 34,169 outstanding immigration appeals, largely on human rights grounds, which threaten to hamper Labour’s efforts to remove illegal migrants. Sir Keir Starmer has already pledged to close a loophole that enabled a family from Gaza to win the right to come to the UK by applying under a Ukrainian refugee scheme.The Daily Dazzling Dawn revealed that Ms Cooper is to use new powers to impose electronic tags, curfews and exclusion zones on dangerous foreigners who avoid deportation using human rights laws.

Her department is also leading the review on whether the British courts and tribunals are more inflexible in their interpretation of Article 8 than other countries or the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg itself.

Tom Baldwin, the Prime Minister’s biographer, said this opened up the prospect of the Government issuing guidance or passing laws to stop the exploitation of the ECHR by the “human rights legal industry”.

Asked about the moves, Sir Keir’s spokesman said it was Parliament not courts that made law. He added: “The Home Secretary is continuing to review the application of Article 8 within the immigration system and will set out further details in due course.”

Government sources said ministers would not leave the ECHR or disapply human rights laws but could change the way the law is applied.We are particularly looking at how these kinds of rules are applied in other countries. Other countries have looked at the application and manage to tighten its use. We are making sure that the legal framework is being applied in a sensible and proportionate way,” said a government source.

Sources pointed in particular to Denmark, which has an “ultra-conservative” migration policy, initially implemented by political parties on the Right but continued by the Social Democrats. One legal observer said Denmark did “a very delicate balancing act and work on the borderline of what does or does not infringe human rights”.

Denmark, the first country to ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention, has had several cases referred to the European Court of Human Rights in the past six years but, of the 11 considered by it, only three led to a ruling that it had violated Article 8 of the ECHR.

Another option being explored by Britain is to work within the Council of Europe to reform the ECHR, given that the international immigration crisis means a growing number of European countries will be more inclined to back a tougher approach.

Sir Keir’s spokesman said: “Britain will unequivocally remain a member of the ECHR and work with international partners to uphold international law.”