Wednesday, November 11, 2009 

The DNA database fudge.

One of the motifs of the past few months has been that politicians of all colours "just don't get it". Ironically, when it comes to the continuing debacle over the DNA database, you rather imagine that they did get it and now they're utterly bewildered at how things have turned out. Here, after all, is what ought to be a standard tabloid outrage scandal: because of the "unaccountable" European Court of Human Rights, the government is having to change its policy on keeping all the DNA profiles of those arrested but not charged indefinitely, potentially raising the spectre of the guilty getting away with their crimes. The Sun, that flag-bearer of social authoritarianism, did originally raise its voice, but has since barely made a peep about the S and Marper case and its implications.

For a government that has so often treated with contempt the concerns of civil libertarians, with the full connivance of the vast majority of the tabloid press, the Daily Mail only recently deciding that it's time to join the other side, it must be wondering where all those who believe if they've got nothing to hide they've got nothing to fear have disappeared to. As it happens, the majority are still probably on the side of mass DNA retention, just as they were on the side of extending the detention limit for terrorist suspects, even if the numbers fell away once the full implications of 42 or 90 days were properly explained.

It is therefore encouraging, that just this once, it's the other side making all the noise. On the one hand, you do have to recognise that if the government were to implement the the S and Marper ruling to the letter and destroy the DNA profiles of those not charged and found not guilty, on the very first occasion that someone then went onto commit a far graver offence and as a result was not brought to justice immediately, you can bet that those who are currently quiet would be screaming blue murder. A more confident, and indeed, more liberal government, would however make the argument that we cannot create a completely secure society without making the kind of sacrifices that would reduce the amount of freedom which each and every one of us currently enjoys. As it is however, we instead have a government that is terrified both of the power of the press in one of its "fits of morality" and which knows that such woolly-thinking is hardly a vote-winner. Even so, keeping an innocent person's profile for 6 years is completely unjustifiable, and quite clearly breaches the S and Marper ruling. The main hope from ministers has to be that by the time any challenge to it winds its way through the courts again, they'll ever not be in the same job, or they won't even be in government. The Conservatives are promising to emulate the more enlightened Scottish system, but again, whether it will be one of their first priorities is unclear.

The overall result though is classically New Labour. They would like to go further, without being able to, while also privately doubtless wishing they could do the exact opposite. Such are the constrains by which we have been governed, and likely will continue to be under Cameron's "new" Tories.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Share |

11/11/2009 09:31:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, May 07, 2009 

A profile of an contempible government.

For a decision made by the European Court of Human Rights, which the tabloids habitually love to portray as a foreign entity imposing liberal madness on this unspoilt land despite our leading role in its establishment, there was surprisingly little apoplexy at the judgement concerning the retention of genetic profiles on the DNA database, especially considering the Sun had scaremongered about the case on a couple of occasions. Partly this was due to being distracted at the time, as Karen Matthews had just been convicted, but also partially down to a gradual changing of views on the general question of civil liberties. After more than a decade where the belief that if you had nothing to hide you had nothing to fear became so entrenched that almost anything, with the exception of the death penalty, was considered as a potential policy to deal with the hysteria over crime, even as crime itself fell off a cliff, sanity has finally begun to make something of a return.

Sanity however is not something that comes naturally to the Home Office under Labour. Despite the hilarious complaints from the Sun, and indeed from Jack Straw that "the criminal justice lobby" have the ear of ministers more than newspaper editors do, the facts, not least a prison population which requires an early release system which actively undermines justice but without which they could not even begin to function, speak for themselves. Admittedly, the DNA database makes for an easy populist cause: while few will still openly call for a "complete" database, the idea that everyone convicted of a crime should be on it indefinitely is still a difficult position to argue against, even if it is as illogical a position as arguing for a full one. At least on one point the government does seem to be willing to be reasonable, or something approaching it: those over 10 and under 18 will have their profiles removed, regardless of whether they are convicted of a crime or not, unless for a violent or sexual offence, when they turn 18, as long as they are not arrested again during their teenage years. Youthful indiscretions it seems will not matter for life as they currently do.

If however being convicted of any offence that carries a potential prison sentence means that your profile should remain on the database indefinitely is indefensible, as the government proposes despite the ECHR's damning verdict, then the idea that those found completely innocent should remain on the database for either 6 or 12 years, depending on the gravity of the offence, is bordering on a complete mockery of justice. While everyone has become acquainted with the example of Mark Dixie, who was convicted of the murder of the photogenic Sally Anne Bowman (who we most likely would never had heard of had she looked more like Susan Boyle), after he was arrested for being involved in a minor scuffle outside a pub, it isn't really an apposite example in this instance because no one is arguing that profiles should not be created from all those arrested and checked against unsolved cases as a matter of course; he would have been caught red-handed regardless. The "consultation" document (PDF)does however contain a more troubling one for those of us who believe those found innocent of what they are accused of should instantly have their profiles removed from the database: Kensley Larrier was arrested in 2002 on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon and had his profile taken and loaded onto the database, but no charges were brought. Three years later Larrier was successfully convicted of rape after his DNA was matched with that left at the crime scene.

It doesn't necessarily mean of course that Larrier would not have been convicted through good old fashioned police work, and the suspicions of the police confirmed once they had arrested him, but it does leave those of us advocating a complete wiping of the profiles of the innocent from the database with the uncomfortable position of knowing that undoubtedly some will get away with subsequent crimes, including the most serious, which they would otherwise have been brought to book for, or at least brought to justice for far sooner than otherwise. The key argument to make in response is that a few "bad eggs" should not mean that all those unfortunate to come under suspicion should be considered potentially guilty until proven innocent, but even that is far from being wholly convincing. Even if we then point out that no system is infallible, and that unless we are prepared to go down the previously mentioned path of everyone being on the database, some would still always escape justice, it still leaves us open to the accusation that we're prepared to put principles, however noble, before the rights of those to have justice seen to be done.

More indicative though of how the government seems determined to still eventually build such a complete database by stealth, is that all those given just a caution, a warning, or a reprimand will also have their profiles kept indefinitely. The number of cautions given in recent years has sky-rocketed, although it's not clear whether this is due to the huge rise in new offences created by this government, the fact that any offence, however minor, is now also an arrestable offence, or an increasing tendency for "summary justice" rather than court proceedings to deal with those minor offences, but it effectively means that only those officially found to be guilty of no offence whatsoever, which is also increasingly rare, will have their profiles removed.

The government claims that its proposals will not just mean that it will comply with the ruling in the S and Marper case, but that they will go substantially further than the requirements. Whether the court will agree may well depend on a further case being brought, but considering the time it will take for it wind its way first through our court system, where S and Marper failed in their attempts, and to the ECHR to consider again, it will doubtless be years before we find out. Certainly there needs to be a challenge, not just to the 6 and 12 years retention for those found completely innocent, but to the blanket retention of those given just a caution, let alone those convicted and given either a fine or a suspended sentence. Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats talk a good game on doing the right thing, but whether the former can be trusted to keep their word, the LDs hardly likely to be in a position to put theirs into action, remains to be seen. In any event, the government has as usual done as little as it feasibly could to not be held in further contempt. It ought to be another thing for which it should be held to account, but even if the mood is slowly changing, there are few votes in giving in to those barmy Europeans.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Share |

5/07/2009 10:58:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, February 23, 2009 

More on Qatada.

Andy Worthington has probably the last word for now on Abu Qatada in an excellent post calling for the introduction of intercept evidence.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

2/23/2009 11:59:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, February 20, 2009 

Scum-watch: Pathetic apoplexy over Qatada's compensation.

It was to be expected that regardless of the level of payout, the Sun was bound to be outraged by the paying of compensation to Abu Qatada and the other men detained illegally at Belmarsh. Quite why it or anyone else is so surprised that the ECHR awarded compensation is a mystery: a more flagrant breach of both the right to liberty and a fair trial is difficult to imagine, regardless of the threat the men are said to pose. These norms and values are however ones which the Sun and some politicians have no intention of respecting when they are so apparently inimical to common sense.

The Sun's opening paragraph could hardly be more partisan:

A BARMY decision to award terror suspect Abu Qatada and eight others £75,000 for a “breach” of their human rights sparked outrage yesterday.

Barmy and most certainly not a "breach" then. You have to wonder how the Sun would respond to a British citizen abroad being detained without charge for over three years, or indeed to a British citizen not accused of links with terrorism being detained here for over three years without charge. One suspects that their attitude might well be entirely different. That Qatada is a "terror suspect" is irrelevant: he has the same rights as everyone else, and to suggest otherwise is part of where we've gone wrong in attempting to fight the terror threat. Those accused of links with terrorism are fundamentally criminals, and need to be declared as such, with normal criminal prosecution taken against them. That this is itself is controversial is partially why compensation has now rightly been paid out.

Naturally, comparisons with the victims of the 7/7 attacks are brought in:

Survivors of the 7/7 attacks on London in 2005 last night compared the handout to their own battle for compensation.

Jackie Putnam, 58, from Huntingdon, Cambs, suffered memory loss and trauma.

She said: “It seems the rules are there to protect the bad guys and the good ones get pushed aside. The suspects have won justice but there has been little or none of it for the victims of 7/7.”

Victim’s dad Mr Foulkes, of Oldham, Greater Manchester, added: “I despair when I hear of a decision like this, then I get angry because it rubs salt in the wounds.”


None of those given compensation have any link whatsoever to 7/7 to begin with, unless you can somehow make a case that they were inspired by Qatada, something I haven't seen made before. Equally, Putnam might well be referring to justice in the sense of bringing those other than bombers themselves involved to book, but if she's referring purely to compensation then there is no real comparison. Back in 2007 the government had already paid out over £3 million to the victims of the attacks, while another £12 million from a dedicated charitable relief fund had also been distributed, sums which put the total of £75,000 and £2,500 to Qatada into stark relief.

For some unfathomable reason, David Cameron also has to stick his nose in. His contribution would be hilarious if it wasn't both so dire and craven:

Unbelievably, taxpayers are going to have to pay him and other terrorist suspects thousands in compensation for detaining them.

It could have been more, but I resent every penny.


Taxpayers can directly blame Cameron for having to pay him compensation: while he was absent or abstained from the vote on the legalisation which introduced indefinite detention without charge, he subsequently voted in 2004 for the renewal of it. Also, why is it unbelievable? Does Cameron not think that detaining anyone without charge indefinitely is beyond the pale?

You have to shake your head at his sheer shamelessness.

He comes to Britain illegally — we let him stay. In the aftermath of 9/11 we detain him fearing he was planning something.

We say he can leave detention if he leaves the country. He doesn’t.

He drags us through appeals at our own courts and the European Court and we have to pay him for the pleasure.


It's about time we challenged this nonsense about him coming here illegally - by definition the vast majority of those who come here and subsequently seek asylum enter the country illegally, mainly because they have no legal way of doing so. His entry was on a false passport, and if we want to be really picky about it, it was a Conservative government which let him stay. He wasn't detained because we feared he was planning something - he was detained simply because of his links to terrorism. Likewise, why on earth would he leave detention when he's a Palestinian by nationality and so cannot return there, and also quite understandably doesn't want to return to Jordan where he faces potential mistreatment and an unfair trial. Nowhere else will take him, hence he's stuck here. He drags us through all his layers of appeal, as is his right.

This case was not even about whether he might be tortured if returned home — just that he might not get a fair trial by our standards.

Why should it be our responsibility and what should we do about it?


Actually it was about whether he might be tortured - just that the judges rejected that part of his argument, while the appeal court accepted he would not face a fair trial, a decision now overturned by the Lords. Does Qatada not deserve a fair trial "by our standards"?

First, we should have stronger border controls. A Conservative government will set up a dedicated Border Police force.

If dangerous people slip through, we should bring them to justice.


And will this border force stop those with false passports getting in and then claiming asylum? Of course not.

A Conservative government will tear up the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights, so we can deal with human rights issues more sensibly.

It makes a mockery of human rights if we can’t protect ourselves against people who are out to destroy them for everyone else.


Will the Conservatives also then be withdrawing from the Council of Europe, and thus leaving the ECHR altogether? All the HRA does is institute the ECHR in British law; all tearing it up will do is mean those seeking justice will have to wait far longer before they receive it. We also have "protected ourselves" from Qatada, as the Lords judgement showed. The people who make a real mockery of human rights are those that deny they are both universal and that want to make it more difficult for the average person to seek recompense, which is exactly what the Conservatives' position will do.

On then to the Scum's incredibly poorly argued leader:

YESTERDAY was a humiliation for Britain.

We have been ordered by Europe to pay thousands to terror suspects such as Abu Qatada simply because we locked them up to keep our streets safe.

Note that throughout the Sun claims we've been ordered to do this by "Europe". The ECHR does not represent Europe: it is simply a European institution, one which we had a major hand in creating. The Sun's constant conflation of the EU with the ECHR is both misleading and almost certainly deliberate, designed to cause further apoplexy at unaccountable institutions when it simply isn't the case. It also wasn't a "humiliation": the real humiliation was that we were the only nation in Europe post 9/11 which felt that the threat to us was so serious that we had to abandon our own long-held values and liberties, while all the others got on perfectly as they had been, despite similar threats to them also. The idea that we locked up Qatada and the others to keep our streets safe is also ludicrous: if we'd really wanted to do that we would have prosecuted them, not detained them illegally and afterwards even allowed Qatada out on bail.

Worse, this disgraceful ruling means our money could well end up funding weapons to attack our own Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Qatada and eight other extremists must be paid £75,000 between them in compensation and costs, rules Europe’s crackpot Human Rights Court.

Who is to say the money won’t be recycled into the back pockets of al-Qaeda?


Considering that four of those given compensation have already been deported, that Qatada is in prison and that the others are still on control orders, the chances of any of the money going on weapons to attack forces or to al-Qaida is incredibly slim to non-existent. Even if some did, I hate to break it to the Sun but £2,500 doesn't buy a lot of weaponry; it might barely cover a couple of decent guns. That al-Qaida and other terrorist groups have other rather more dependable sources of cash then those locked up over here is something of a understatement. The costs of course won't go to the men, but rather to their lawyers.

This is the lowest moment since Labour’s catastrophic decision to enforce European human rights laws in Britain.

We have to go cap in hand to a monster like Abu Qatada with a cheque from the very British taxpayers he wants murdered.


The lowest moment since the last lowest moment, obviously. The only thing catastrophic about the HRA to the Sun is that it potentially affects its business model, as we have noted in the past. If we didn't want to have to pay Qatada compensation, we shouldn't have acted illegally; it's pretty damn simple.

Europe’s human rights laws have made this country a laughing stock. We could be funding terrorists to buy guns to shoot our own soldiers.

Is that the third time in a very short article that the Sun's made the same argument? Hasn't that barrel been scraped enough? Do I really need to say again that "Europe's" human rights laws are as much our creation as anyone else's?

We can’t endure the shame of this any longer. We have to change the law.

Britain’s safety must come before pandering to Europe.


So, as previously stated, we're going to both abolish the HRA and withdraw from the ECHR, yes? The idea that we're pandering in any way to Europe is ludicrous: we're simply operating as every other democracy in Europe does, including the authoritarian likes of Russia, which is also signed up to the ECHR. The idea that we would withdraw from it while Russia stayed would make us the real laughing stock, a country which abandons its principles to fight a pathetic threat that has been ridiculously exaggerated. The Sun, as ever, only has its own real interest at heart.

Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Share |

2/20/2009 11:08:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, February 19, 2009 

Even "terrorist suspects" deserved more.

It must have come as a great disappointment to the Daily Mail hacks that despite their predictions that Abu Qatada and the others illegally detained without charge at Belmarsh from 2002 to 2005 were about to receive hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation from the European Court of Human Rights that the actual amount turned out to be a rather less outrageous £2,500, rising to over £3,000 for those detained longest. Even this miserly amount was condemned by the Conservatives as "horrifying", when the only thing horrifying about it was that it wasn't far far higher.

In that, the ECHR seems to have decided to be cautious. In its ruling it even accepted the frankly bogus assertion from the government, used to justify the detention without charge for foreign "terrorist suspects" who supposedly couldn't be tried, that there was a "public emergency threatening the life of the nation". This country has only ever faced a public emergency threatening the life of the nation once, from 1939 up until 1944, when the possibility of the Nazis launching an invasion had drastically rescinded. The very notion that somehow the likes of Abu Qatada and the other detainees posed a threat similar to then was insulting in the extreme.

We really ought to set out in detail what the detention without charge or trial amounted to. It meant that someone (as long as they were a foreign national, or in Qatada's case, stripped of their asylum status so they could be designated as one) could be accused of being involved in terrorism, where either the evidence was inadmissable or too flimsy to be brought before a court, and on that basis locked up indefinitely in one our flagship highest security prisons. You were not allowed to know what the evidence was against you, in order to challenge it; your case was instead dealt with by a special advocate appointed by the court. In short, you could only really challenge your detention as a whole by arguing that there was no real threat to the life of the nation, and that therefore the derogation from article 5 of the ECHR was unlawful. This was what the law lords ruled in December 2004. The entire Kafkaesque situation had a devastating effect on the detainees' mental health, as could have been predicted; almost all of them were prescribed anti-depressants, another attempted suicide and Abu Rideh, one of the few to be named and also awarded compensation today, repeatedly harmed himself. He was last known to be seriously ill from a hunger strike in protest at his continuing restriction of liberty under a control order. A stateless Palestinian confined to a wheelchair, the idea that he posed a threat to anyone was always laughable. Yet he too along with the others was only given a small lump sum as the ECHR ruled that their treatment did not amount to inhuman or degrading treatment.

Alan Travis points out the staggering difference between payouts, mentioning that the ECHR had previously awarded £5,500 to a British man who had been unlawfully detained for only 6 days. Some of those held were kept in custody for over 3 years before being released onto the only slightly less onerous control orders. In some cases this amounts to just over £2 compensation for each day spent illegally in custody. Put it this way: if this had happened to British citizens, and not those accused of involvement in terrorism, regardless of the fact that none have ever had to face the accusations in an actual trial, they would have been looking at compensation in the tens, if not hundreds of thousands, as Qatada had initially demanded. The ECHR seems to have decided not to inflame the tabloids further than they already have been; politically wise perhaps, but cowardly in its own way.

Less cowardly was another part of the ruling, which has finally struck a blow directly against the process of the Special Immigration Appeals Committees, where those before them are routinely denied access to the evidence held against them, making it almost impossible for them to be able to adequately challenge it. The ECHR ruled that in some of the cases, although not in all, that this was constituted another breach of article 5. It's unclear what this means for the continuation of SIAC: the ECHR accepted that where more extended information had been provided to those detained without charge, that there had not been breach of the right to a fair trial. This most likely means that the government, rather than being forced to scrap what amounts to little more than a kangaroo court, albeit an independent one, will simply have to hand over slightly more information than it otherwise would have done. A partial victory it might be, but a welcome one nonetheless.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

2/19/2009 11:59:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, December 04, 2008 

The European Court of Human Rights rides to the rescue, again.

It's indicative of how disjointed the debate in this country often is on crime and punishment that it's taken the European Court of Human Rights to tell us that the retention of the fingerprints, cellular samples and DNA profiles of those never charged or convicted of any crime is not just unwarranted and untenable but also immoral. The House of Lords, which usually acquits itself fairly well on such matters, rejected the appeal by the two men from Sheffield with little of its usual flair or insight. The ECHR's unanimous decision by 17 judges that the policy breaches Article 8 of our own HRA could hardly be more authoritative.

The difficulty with the keeping of such profiles has always been that no one argues with the potential that the DNA database has for solving crimes where justice has previously not been done. The case of Mark Dixie, to mention just one example, who was arrested after a disturbance in a pub and had his saliva and fingerprints taken as a result, led to his being convicted of the murder of Sally Anne Bowman, a case which might have otherwise remained in limbo. There is still more than justification, I feel, for all those arrested to provide samples which can then be checked against unsolved crimes. The question is what, if there are then no matches, should be done if no charges are brought or after a certain length of time has elapsed with the person not re-offending.

The review which the Home Office is having to set-up to provide an answer to the court, due to report back in March, might well begin to provide some answers. It ought, for example, to be fairly easy to remove the data of those who are either not charged or who are subsequently found not guilty from the database once the full facts become known, just as information from those under 16 ought to be dealt with in an entirely different matter. Yet as Afua Hirsch writes, the database and systems used are disparate and confused, where it can be impossible to learn whether simple requests for the destruction of the material held have actually been met. Likewise, with the information that is apparently held on the database, it ought to now be fairly easy to contact those who have their information held who have never been charged or subsequently acquitted and ask them whether they wish for it to be destroyed, or whether they have no problems with it being kept. Again, with the general incompetence that this government has involving both databases and the retention of information, it's impossible to imagine this happening.

Like with the way it has conducted itself on many other issues involving civil liberties, the government and the police have wanted to create an almost all encompassing database by relative stealth. The only individuals, for instance, to have advocated a full database of everyone's details have either been victims of crime or certain honest individual senior police officers and judges. The change to taking samples from everyone, whether they were charged or not, was the way of getting around a huge row which the government wasn't going to be about to have. This compromise kept everyone apart from Liberty and the Henry Porters of this world relatively happy, until they themselves had the misfortune to be arrested or come into contact with the police and they themselves were subject to the data harvesting, which we are informed even Damian Green underwent.

Recent developments in any event ought to have knocked the idea of the all encompassing database on the head: techniques are now used to match DNA to relatives rather than individuals, and with 33% of those under 35 having a criminal record outside of motoring offences, it's only a matter of time before such a database will have coverage of 80 to 100% of the population. Even less reason then for every innocent individual to have their personal samples stored.

If the government was anywhere near where it ought to be on such matters, it could adopt Germany's current model on the holding of samples: samples are destroyed if they are no longer required for criminal proceedings, those on the database are reappraised every 10 years to see if they are still relevant, and only federal state investigators rather than ordinary police forces have access. Instead, if the government decides not to try to legislate its way out its mess, and even that would be subject to challenge, it will probably grudgingly try to implement the more haphazard approach identified above. All we have to look forward to now are the screams from the Sun of unelected European judges interfering with our laws, yet again...

Labels: , , ,

Share |

12/04/2008 11:59:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, August 07, 2008 

Scum-watch: Europe and Hamza, sitting in a tree..

There's nothing the Sun loves better (other than big tits, Our Boys, attractive missing little girls and Sky, naturally) than attacking Europe, both as a whole and as in the political union. Add in one of the Sun's other favourite pantomime villains, the almost too good to be true Abu Hamza, and you have the latest outrage about which something must be done:

Euro clowns let Hamza off the hook

EUROPEAN judges yesterday halted Abu Hamza’s extradition to the US on terror charges after the cleric claimed it would breach his human rights.

If this is meant to give the impression that the European judges have ruled that he can't be extradited, then the Sun's job has been done. It's only four paragraphs later that the Sun explains further:

They ruled the extradition be put on hold until they are able to consider the case.

In other words, all the court has decided is that there's potentially a case to answer and that Hamza should not be deported until the court considers its decision. The European Court of Human Rights is the last court which Hamza has recourse to appeal to, having decided not to apply to the House of Lords after the High Court ruled his extradition should go ahead.

Quite why the Sun is getting so excited about this is a mystery. Hamza isn't going anywhere, as he's still serving his sentence for stirring up racial hatred and inciting murder at Belmarsh, and is unlikely to be released even if he completes it before the ECHR makes its ruling. It feebly attempts to suggest that this will be another £50,000 of "benefits" going to Hamza, but this is legal aid which he'll never so much as touch. The chances of him succeeding are also negligible: he doesn't face the death penalty, so the precedent set by Soering v. the United Kingdom doesn't apply, and he hasn't in his appeal to the ECHR claimed that the evidence against him is the product of torture, as he had previously done.. Just as pathetic is its final remarks that the judges are from countries unlikely to be "targets in the war on terror":

They are Giovanni Bonnell, 72, from Malta, David Björgvinsson, 52, of Iceland, Paivi Hirvelä, 53, of Finland, Nebojsa Vucinic, 55, of Montenegro, Mihai Poalelungi, 45, of Moldavia (sic), Jan Šikuta, 47, of Slovakia, Ljiljana Mijovic, 44, of Bosnia Herzegovina, Ledi Bianku, 37, of Albania and Lech Garlicki, 61, of Poland.

This is ignorant in two ways. Firstly because these are the judges of just one of the sections, section IV, which just happened to be the ones chosen in this case to rule on Hamza's request. The president of the court, for instance, is French, a nation which has dealt with Islamic terrorism for far longer than we have, while one of the vice-presidents is a Brit. Additionally, one of the section presidents is Danish, another country which has found itself in the eye of the storm recently. Additionally, while the majority of those countries may not have suffered or been targeted in the "war on terror" (yet), Bosnia was certainly one of the places of interest to al-Qaida in the 90s, and Poland has deployed troops in Iraq, most certainly making them a potential target.

It's the Scum's leader that as usual lets loose with the both barrels:

YOU won’t have ever heard of 72-year-old Giovanni Bonnell from Malta. Or Ledi Bianku, 37, from Albania.

But yesterday these two — plus seven other judges on the European Court of Human Rights — STOPPED the extradition of hate preacher Abu Hamza to the US.

They haven't stopped it - they've ruled that it should it be postponed while they consider the matter. There's quite a big difference between saying they can't extradite Hamza and saying that they shouldn't whilst they consider the case.

Their intervention is an outrage.

British courts ruled Hamza must face justice in America.

That decision has now been put on hold so Euro judges can hear the twisted fanatic’s appeal.

Bonnell, Bianku and their chums all come from obscure countries that have never faced Islamic terrorism.

This is just the latest example of how Europe rides roughshod over the UK. It’s time we stood up and said enough and no more.

Hamza’s fate is a decision for British judges — and British judges alone.


Time for a history lesson. The Sun loves to pretend that it's Europe that's always imposing itself on Britain - when in this case it was Britain that had a major rule in the setting up of first the Convention on Human Rights and then the court itself. Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe oversaw the drafting of the document, which was ratified in 1953. The Court itself was first established in 1959, and as one of the founding members of the Council of Europe (a completely separate entity to the European Economic Committee which became the European Union), which oversees the court and the convention, we have been party to it since the beginning. The Sun is therefore claiming that Europe has been riding roughshod over us since the early 50s, or rather, that we've been more or less riding roughshod over ourselves.

The Sun of course never corrects the completely faulty impression that this is something to do with European Union, and has indeed in the past wrongly claimed that it is part of the European Union. Hence the commentators screaming for us to get out of Europe now. Even if we were to leave the European Union, it seems doubtful that we would also exit the Council of Europe, and besides, the European Convention of Human Rights is already now British law as the Human Rights Act. Hamza's appeal to the ECHR is simply his final throw of the dice and one which shouldn't be use to attack Europe in such a disengenuous manner.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

8/07/2008 08:16:00 PM | | | links to this post

About

  • This is septicisle
profile

Links

Last posts

Archives

Email me
Syndicate this site (XML)
Powered by Blogger
and Blogger Templates