Northern Ireland court strikes down key parts of UK Illegal Migration Act

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The High Court in Northern Ireland dealt a fresh blow to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s immigration policy on Monday by striking down the application of key parts of the UK’s Illegal Migration Act in the region.

Mr Justice Michael Humphreys ruled that human rights provisions of the act contravened the post-Brexit Windsor framework. Signed last year by the UK and EU, the accord governs trade with Northern Ireland.

He also ruled that other provisions were incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Belfast challenge was brought by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, an independent watchdog, and a 16-year-old asylum seeker from Iran now living in the region.

The UK government had argued that immigration policy was “entirely untouched” by the Windsor framework. The passage into law of the Illegal Migration Act last July barred anyone entering the UK without prior permission from claiming asylum.

Brexit left the region inside the EU’s single market for goods as well as in the UK’s internal market. The Windsor framework established rules for trade but also had important human rights implications.

Its Article 2 guarantees that rights granted to people in Northern Ireland, including refugees and asylum seekers, under the Good Friday Agreement that ended Northern Ireland’s “Troubles” conflict cannot be undermined by the UK migration legislation.

Colin Murray, professor of law and democracy at Newcastle University, said the ruling struck “another hole” in the UK’s contentious policy to curb asylum seekers, which includes removing people to Rwanda.

“You can only bash so many holes in a policy before it ceases to have credibility,” he added.

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission said it welcomed the judgment.

“The commission issued this legal challenge in its own name due to the significant concerns it has with the Illegal Migration Act and the effect on asylum seekers in Northern Ireland,” it said. “We will now be considering the judgment in full and its implications.”

The UK government was contacted for comment.

The UK is expected to appeal against Monday’s ruling, which follows another decision in February by Northern Ireland’s High Court that went against the government.

In that ruling, the court struck down parts of the UK’s controversial Legacy Act, which passed into law last year and closes inquests into atrocities committed during the three decades-long Troubles.

The immigration ruling triggered fresh political wrangling. Jim Allister, leader of Northern Ireland’s hardline pro-UK Traditional Unionist Voice party, slammed it as “yet another humiliation and savaging of UK sovereignty”.

“Now we not only have a trade partitioning Irish Sea border, but now an immigration border too, leaving NI wide open as a magnet for asylum seekers,” Allister wrote on X.

The Democratic Unionist party, Northern Ireland’s largest pro-UK grouping, boycotted the Stormont assembly for two years in a dispute over Brexit. It ended its protest in February after striking a deal with the UK government, outlined in the “Safeguarding the Union” document.

In the document, the government said: “The Windsor framework applies only in respect of the trade in goods — the vast majority of public policy is entirely untouched by it. This includes important areas like immigration, where the UK’s immigration policy and law applies uniformly across the United Kingdom.”

The Dublin government has said that up to 90 per cent of asylum seekers arriving in Ireland had crossed the border with Northern Ireland — some in a bid to avoid being sent to Rwanda.

The High Court ruling would mean “they no longer need to do that last step”, Murray said.

In a speech on Monday, Sunak repeated his warning that he would be prepared to ignore rulings from the European Court of Human Rights in order to remove some asylum seekers to Rwanda.

“If the Strasbourg court make me choose between the ECHR and this country’s security, I will choose our country’s security every single time,” he said.