Rishi Sunak requires change to guidelines that stopped Rwanda deportation flight in assembly with European court docket chief

Rishi Sunak has met with the European Court of Human Rights chief and requested for modifications to the principles which stopped the federal government’s Rwanda deportation flight.

The prime minister was visiting the Council of Europe summit in Iceland at this time, the place he was discussing migration and the war in Ukraine with different European leaders.

Mr Sunak met with Siofra O’Leary, the pinnacle of the European Court of Human Rights, primarily based in Strasbourg.

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After the bilateral, a Downing Street spokesperson mentioned: “The prime minister confused the necessity to guarantee all of Europe is working collectively to uphold these values and sort out the challenges we face, together with unlawful migration.

“The prime minister and court president also discussed procedures before the ECtHR, which the latter regularly reviews, including rule 39 interim measures.”

He later additionally met with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.

The spokesperson for Number 10 mentioned the pair “agreed to strengthen co-operation between the EU and UK on migration through developing a new working arrangement between UK agencies and Frontex [the EU’s border and coast guart agency], enabling us to work together on critical operational and strategic challenges including the situation in the Channel.”

Mr Sunak was planning to make use of the summit in Reykjavik to name for reform to the best way by which the European Court of Human Rights can stop countries from deporting people.

In specific, he was taking purpose on the court docket’s rule 39, which was used to cease the federal government’s first – and up to now solely – try and deport folks to Rwanda for the processing of their asylum claims.

Mr Sunak mentioned the court docket has “embarked” on a assessment of the processes itself already.

He mentioned: “We want to make sure that the European court is always conducting itself in a way which is fair, which is effective, which is transparent.”

But Iceland’s international affairs minister sought to minimize the prominence of immigration reform as a subject for dialogue on the summit.

Thordis Gylfadottir instructed the BBC: “This summit has not a big focus on that. The biggest focus is, of course, Ukraine, and then other issues such as AI and environment and other things. So this summit doesn’t have a big focus on migration in general.”

She added: “But the next two days, the time we have we are not using to reform certain articles in the court.”

Pressed on whether or not there could be discussions on the prime minister’s name for reforms to how rule 39 works, she mentioned: “I believe that there will be a discussion on it, but there will not be I think a real concrete outcome on reforming certain articles.”

An earlier model of this text reported that Rishi Sunak mentioned “8,000” folks had been returned to Albania. Downing Street has since clarified the prime minister meant to say “a thousand”.