The Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said that human rights laws could block the removal of foreign sex offenders from the UK.
The Home Secretary suggested that changes could be required to rule as to how the law is interpreted.
Cooper wants the law to be changed so convicted migrants will be thrown into prison to then be thrown out of the UK.
The Refugee Convention states that countries can refuse asylum seekers who have committed a “particularly serious crime” such as a war crimes and are considered to be a danger in public.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Cooper said they are reviewing the issue out of respect for family life, which is “supposed to be balanced against other issues.”
“We do think it is possible to have a stronger framework that is set out around the way in which international law should be interpreted,” she said.
“We obviously continue to comply with international law, but it’s about how it is interpreted.”
Times Radio asked Cooper if sex offenders will be stopped from using the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) so that migrants can appeal against them being removed from the UK.
The Home Secretary said, “Of course, there are often other obstacles that are put in the way of different kinds of returns and removals, but that’s why we’re working so hard to seek to remove those.
“But the first step is to remove somebody’s entitlement to asylum protection in the first place if they have committed these serious crimes.”
Currently the government is reviewing Article 8 of the ECHR which is the right to a family life, with regards to immigration.
Cooper said, “it is possible to change the way” in which the ECHR rules as to how the right to a family life is being interpreted.
She told Times Radio, “I do believe it is possible to change the way in which Article 8 is being interpreted.
“Because in practice, what’s happening is it’s partly about the way in which our laws are operating, it’s about the way in which, I think that there’s been a bit of an abdication of responsibility to set down the way in which our laws should operate, and too much has been left to ad hoc decisions by the courts.
“But look, that review is under way at the moment, we will bring forward the conclusions.”
