Mr Hickman told the court the legal action “is not to frustrate the Government’s policy of removing asylum seekers to Rwanda.
“For this reason, the claim was brought very quickly to allow the matter to be determined well before any such removals take place.”
The first flight for removals is now due to take off on July 24, after the general election, and Sir James Eadie KC, for the Cabinet Office, Mr Sunak and the Home Office, said that the FDA’s case on the meaning of the civil service code is “constitutionally untenable”.
In written submissions, he said that decisions on whether to comply with “unincorporated international treaty obligations” are for ministers.
Sir James continued: “Parliament evidently did not intend that, even if a minister decided to remove a person to Rwanda despite a rule 39 indication, that decision could be frustrated and undermined by civil servants deciding that they would not assist.”
‘Not an option to take their own view’
He said that orders from the ECHR do not impose “any personal obligations as a matter of international law on individual civil servants, whether as citizens of the UK or as persons whose official acts are or may be attributable to the UK as a matter of international law.”
Sir James later said it was not an option for civil servants to “take their own view on the lawfulness of the UK’s compliance” by refusing to implement a decision.
“A civil servant implementing a decision of a minister lawfully taken under domestic law… would be acting in compliance with the duty to comply with the law under the code, as reflected in the guidance,” he continued.
The court was later told by Sir James that under the Safety of Rwanda Act “ministers are the relevant constitutional actors with the power and constitutional responsibility for such decisions”.
A ruling will be made at a later date but Mr Justice Chamberlain said he would make a judgment before the first flight was scheduled to take off.
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