The UK government is once again navigating legal and political hurdles over its plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. The latest debate is over the emergency bill that legally declares Rwanda a safe place to send refugees (despite the supreme court ruling the opposite).

The government has now told civil servants that, if a minister tells them to, they must ignore rule 39 orders from the European court of human rights in Strasbourg.

The court enforces the European convention on human rights, to which the UK and 45 other European countries are party. Rule 39 allows the court to issue interim measures to stop any of these governments from taking action that could or would violate someone’s human rights.