Patel calls decision to block Rwanda deportations 'scandalous'

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel called the European Convention on Human Rights'(ECHR) decision to ground UK's first deportation flight to Rwanda "scandalous," The Telegraph reported.

"The opaque way this court has operated is scandalous," Priti Patel said in an interview with the newspaper published on Saturday, after the government was thwarted in its attempt to send a handful of migrants on a charter plane to Rwanda on Tuesday after ECHR stepped in to issue injunctions, cancelling the flight.

British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said on Thursday that Britain has no plans to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, but added that the Strasbourg court, which enforces it, overstepped its powers in blocking the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda.

"The've (ECHR) not used this ruling previously, which does make you question the motivation and the lack of transparency," the newspaper quoted Patel as saying.

The European court's late intervention had led some in Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative Party to call for Britain to pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights altogether.