Rule of Lawyers: How the ECHR is Hampering Action on Migration

Jacob Reynolds

Is Europe still governed by the people, or by the judges? Elected governments across the continent are facing strategic paralysis, finding their hands tied when attempting to control the explosion of irregular migration and asylum claims. 

This report, Rule of Lawyers, exposes how the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has engineered a brazen power-grab, operating as an increasingly political body that reserves the right to progressively expand human rights beyond what member-states ever agreed to. The ECtHR has stretched its "tentacles ever further" into national policy, fundamentally narrowing the democratic space to police borders and remove those with no right to stay. It does this through shadowy legal doctrines: extraterritorial reach effectively outlawing basic border enforcement like pushbacks; last-minute Rule 39 injunctions that can freeze entire government programmes, as seen when a single judge grounded the UK’s flagship Rwanda deportation flight; and the catastrophic expansion of Article 8 "right to a family life," a "catch-all provision" frustrating the deportation of illegal immigrants and even protecting violent criminals and drug dealers. 

Unless there is fundamental reform, sovereign states face a constitutional collision course, forced to legislate around Strasbourg or openly resist the dictates of unelected judges to reclaim national sovereignty.

About the author

Jacob Reynolds brings to MCC Brussels a wealth of experience in conceiving, organising, and contributing to fora for debate, research and discussion. His academic background is in philosophy, having obtained the BPhil in Philosophy from St Cross College, Oxford, specialising in the work of Hannah Arendt. After Oxford, Jacob pursued a career in strategy consulting, where he advised major corporations on how to adapt to the challenges of the 21st Century. Jacob then joined a major London think tank and charity to expand their work organising opportunities for rigorous public debate and education. There, he organised the Battle of Ideas festival, Europe’s largest festival of ideas devoted to free speech and The Academy, a residential summer school in the UK for free thinkers who want to understand the historical roots of current issues. He spends his spare time writing, travelling and cooking with his wife, and learning Ukrainian. He is author of Beyond the Culture Wars, which looks at how Western societies have become estranged from the basic building blocks of political life. With MCC Brussels, Jacob sees a unique opportunity to break free of the deadening, technocratic discussions that currently dominate the Brussels intellectual scene.