How did "Human Rights" become a bad thing?
I have always believed in government by law, not by men, that no person or government should be trusted with absolute power, and that we need safeguards to protect innocent people from abuse of authority.
I am convinced that the vast majority of British people would say the same thing. And to put those ideas into practice is exactly what the people who signed the European Convention on Human Rights and set up the European Court of Human Rights were trying to do.
Which makes it all the more ironic that the ECHR (both versions of the acronym) has been such a source of anger and frustration among those in Britain who follow politics that it is in danger of discrediting the idea of Human Rights. Which is an enormous shame.
An erroneous association of the ECHR with the European Union (because both are usually referred to in the media as "Europe") certainly hasn't helped, but it isn't the main reason for what has gone wrong.
The main problem is neither with the idea of human rights, nor with the idea of a European convention to support them, nor even with everything in the laws that have been passed. It's that the rules and principles have often been applied - or in the case of some of the principles in the Human Rights Act which should have acted as safeguards, not applied - with a ludicrous lack of common sense.
When the last government incorporated the ECHR into British Law, I sat through a number of legal briefings on the subject, both as a BT manager and as a senior councillor. The lawyers who presented those briefings made very clear that the human rights of everyone affected by a decision, and not just, say, suspects or indeed convicted criminals, should be taken into account.
In other words, it is not just possible, but is supposed to be mandatory, to consider the human rights of the victim as well as the criminal. To consider the human right of members of society to go about their business without being blown up, as well as the rights of the bomber or suspected would-be bomber. To consider the rights of the taxpayer as well as those of the litigious criminal and his or her lawyer.
I'm not in the least surprised that some lawyers, representing people whose cases have ranged from the excellent to the wholly risible, have used the Human Rights Act to try to get large sums of money for their clients and themselves. And I welcome the fact that they have sometimes helped people who were probably innocent to get off. But I am surprised and disappointed that some judges, with the European Court foremost among them, have handed down daft judgements which are far too heavily weighted in favour of the criminal or terrorist and against society, morality, and common sense.
However authoritarian New Labour were - and they were pretty bad towards the end - I doubt if they would have attempted to impose the dreadful control orders regime, or got it through the House of Commons, had not the ECHR made it extremely difficult to extradite people who are suspected of promoting terrorism if there is any danger than they might be maltreated in their home countries. And maltreated, for this purpose, includes the application of penalties which the ECHR disapproves of, even where the accused has been convicted, in a fair trial and on the basis of overwhelming evidence, of a capital offence.
The effect has been that a noble tradition, that of giving refuge to the innocent victims of genuine oppression, has been extended by judicial fiat to cover suspected terrorists, including some who are almost certainly guilty of the crimes for which their home countries wish to punish them.
While it is much less serious than their disastrous rulings on terrorism, the row about votes for prisoners has proved the last straw for the MPs because it is such an idiotic example of the same complete lack of balance and common sense.
Remand prisoners awaiting trial should, and do, have the vote. But by definition, convicted prisoners have had some of their normal rights taken away, after due process of law, as a punishment for crimes which they have been proved beyond reasonable doubt to have committed. To argue that parliament cannot make the right to vote one of the liberties which is taken away from convicted criminals for the duration of their sentence seems ludicrously perverse. Can anyone in their right mind argue that the right to vote is more fundamental than the right not to be locked up?
It would be a shame if the baby of limits on state power, government by the rules, and promoting human rights in the emerging democracies of Europe, had to be thrown out with the bathwater of the ECHR's daft rulings on extradition and prisoner voting.
I am convinced that the vast majority of British people would say the same thing. And to put those ideas into practice is exactly what the people who signed the European Convention on Human Rights and set up the European Court of Human Rights were trying to do.
Which makes it all the more ironic that the ECHR (both versions of the acronym) has been such a source of anger and frustration among those in Britain who follow politics that it is in danger of discrediting the idea of Human Rights. Which is an enormous shame.
An erroneous association of the ECHR with the European Union (because both are usually referred to in the media as "Europe") certainly hasn't helped, but it isn't the main reason for what has gone wrong.
The main problem is neither with the idea of human rights, nor with the idea of a European convention to support them, nor even with everything in the laws that have been passed. It's that the rules and principles have often been applied - or in the case of some of the principles in the Human Rights Act which should have acted as safeguards, not applied - with a ludicrous lack of common sense.
When the last government incorporated the ECHR into British Law, I sat through a number of legal briefings on the subject, both as a BT manager and as a senior councillor. The lawyers who presented those briefings made very clear that the human rights of everyone affected by a decision, and not just, say, suspects or indeed convicted criminals, should be taken into account.
In other words, it is not just possible, but is supposed to be mandatory, to consider the human rights of the victim as well as the criminal. To consider the human right of members of society to go about their business without being blown up, as well as the rights of the bomber or suspected would-be bomber. To consider the rights of the taxpayer as well as those of the litigious criminal and his or her lawyer.
I'm not in the least surprised that some lawyers, representing people whose cases have ranged from the excellent to the wholly risible, have used the Human Rights Act to try to get large sums of money for their clients and themselves. And I welcome the fact that they have sometimes helped people who were probably innocent to get off. But I am surprised and disappointed that some judges, with the European Court foremost among them, have handed down daft judgements which are far too heavily weighted in favour of the criminal or terrorist and against society, morality, and common sense.
However authoritarian New Labour were - and they were pretty bad towards the end - I doubt if they would have attempted to impose the dreadful control orders regime, or got it through the House of Commons, had not the ECHR made it extremely difficult to extradite people who are suspected of promoting terrorism if there is any danger than they might be maltreated in their home countries. And maltreated, for this purpose, includes the application of penalties which the ECHR disapproves of, even where the accused has been convicted, in a fair trial and on the basis of overwhelming evidence, of a capital offence.
The effect has been that a noble tradition, that of giving refuge to the innocent victims of genuine oppression, has been extended by judicial fiat to cover suspected terrorists, including some who are almost certainly guilty of the crimes for which their home countries wish to punish them.
While it is much less serious than their disastrous rulings on terrorism, the row about votes for prisoners has proved the last straw for the MPs because it is such an idiotic example of the same complete lack of balance and common sense.
Remand prisoners awaiting trial should, and do, have the vote. But by definition, convicted prisoners have had some of their normal rights taken away, after due process of law, as a punishment for crimes which they have been proved beyond reasonable doubt to have committed. To argue that parliament cannot make the right to vote one of the liberties which is taken away from convicted criminals for the duration of their sentence seems ludicrously perverse. Can anyone in their right mind argue that the right to vote is more fundamental than the right not to be locked up?
It would be a shame if the baby of limits on state power, government by the rules, and promoting human rights in the emerging democracies of Europe, had to be thrown out with the bathwater of the ECHR's daft rulings on extradition and prisoner voting.
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