“The UK government must refrain from deporting people under the Rwanda plan and reverse the assault on the independence of the judiciary that this Bill represents,” said Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, in a statement.

London is a member of the Council of Europe, a 46-member body based in Strasbourg.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Tuesday that “nothing will deter” his government from sending migrants who cross the Channel illegally from France to the UK to Rwanda, after parliament approved legislation paving the way for the plan.

Parliament passed the legislation late on Monday after a marathon overnight sitting and months of wrangling between the elected House of Commons and the unelected House of Lords over amendments added by peers and rejected by MPs.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said in a video posted on social media that the legislation will “stop people abusing the law, using spurious human rights claims to block removals, and makes it clear that the British parliament is sovereign”.

“We are now working day and night to get the flights up and running.”

The government’s bill was intended to make Rwanda a “safe” country after the UK Supreme Court ruled the original plan unlawful.

In November last year, the Supreme Court found that the African nation was not a safe country because migrants could be trafficked to countries they had fled.

On Monday, a group of UN human rights experts told airlines and aviation authorities that they should “not facilitate” the “unlawful” transfer of asylum seekers to Rwanda from the UK, if immigration deals between the two countries go ahead.

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