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What about our human rights?

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Bobbisox | 14:25 Sun 18th Sep 2011 | News
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to walk the streets of London without being blown apart..

The sooner the Human Rights Act is raked over, the better!


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I have posed the same question before, exdc. And answers came there none (well, sensible ones anyway).

I don’t know of anybody in the UK who has suffered torture or degrading treatment who has not been able to seek redress through our courts without HR legislation. I don’t know anybody who has been denied a fair trial without redress to an appeal. I don’t know anybody who has been denied a “family life” by the UK authorities. In short, I don’t know of any cases where HR legislation has been necessary to prevent excesses of the UK State machinery.

Of course there are plenty of States where this may not be so. And this is where I part company with many of the interpretations made on HR grounds. Those rights (against State oppression) have been extended to lay blame on the UK authorities should they seek to deport somebody (legitimately apart from nebulous HR grounds) to a State where their rights are not so well protected.

It is hardly the responsibility of the UK government if citizens of other States are persecuted or mistreated should they be returned home. To extend the protection of the HRA worldwide is a gross over interpretation of an already flawed piece of legislation.
New Judge you have a lot to say on the issue - you are entitled to your views.
I really have no more to add to the points I already made.
However, please don't twist my words to claim I am suggesting:
"we keep the world’s terrorists here so that we “can keep an eye on them” "
I was merely speculating that he might be less of a danger to anyone in Britain, but that was a "by the by"
"It is hardly the responsibility of the UK government if citizens of other States are persecuted or mistreated should they be returned home. To extend the protection of the HRA"

Is it "extending the protection of the HRA?" Has the HRA even got anything to do with this?
And what about extradition cases where repressive foreign governments try to get their hands on political opponents through often trumped-up charges. I'm rather glad that we care about that to be honest.
Seems to me you only have rights if you do something wrong. The rest of us just get on with it.
I believe the UK refuses to extradite suspects to face trial in the USA if they might face the death penalty if convicted.
Without some form of human rights legislation would that protection still stand?
"Seems to me you only have rights if you do something wrong. The rest of us just get on with it. "

That's because most of us are lucky enough not to need to call on the protection of the law explicitly. It's only really when you consider countries where scant attention is paid to human rights that you realise how much we take our liberties for granted.
Yes, I do have a lot to say on the topic, ichkeria, because I consider some of the decisions made under Human Rights legislation to be among the great scandals of our time.

I’m sorry if you think I’m twisting your words. I really didn’t know how else to interpret “...it is worth considering whether he would not pose a greater risk to the UK - and other countries - were he to return to Somalia.” Presumably you meant “as opposed to remaining here”, hence my remarks.

Yes, it is extending the HRA to operate worldwide. The UK government is not operating policies of torture or persecution in cases where they are trying to legitimately deport a convicted criminal to a country that might be unsafe. But it is being accused of Human Rights transgressions as if it were. It has everything to do with the HRA because appeals are made (and are usually successful) under the deliberately vague provisions of the HRA such as “right to a family life” (whatever that should mean).

The matter of extradition is completely different. In my view the government should be more careful about what extradition treaties it signs and with whom. But if such treaties are agreed they are done so by the UK government with agreement of the UK Parliament. Such legislation should not be trumped by a wooly “catch all” piece of law which prevents more specific legislation from being enacted.

The issue of deportations is not the only one where normal law seems to be suspended. In planning law, for example, rules which we must all adhere to are somehow suspended to protect some people’s “Human Rights”. This was not the intention of the architects of the ECHR, hence my contention that some of the interpretations are scandalous.

In answer to your question, Sandy, no the protection would probably not stand without our HRA. So murderers from the USA (not, what I would consider to be a “rogue state” when it comes to justice) elope to the UK to escape the due punishment of their own courts. What happens if judges here suddenly decide that incarceration for 99 years (a popular disposal in US States where the death penalty is not available) is somehow “degrading” or “inhuman”. It is not for us to protect people from the wrath of the US courts any more than I would expect other nations to protect them from ours (even though the wrath of our courts may not be quite so severe).

I’m off for a Ruby now.
Spot on New Judge, on all your points.
"I’m sorry if you think I’m twisting your words. I really didn’t know how else to interpret “...it is worth considering whether he would not pose a greater risk to the UK - and other countries - were he to return to Somalia.”

I didn't mean that the judge ought to consider this as part of his assessment. Plainly he should not. I was, as I said before, simply thinking aloud on the issue. I'm not advocating that we should keep all terrorists in this country just to monitor them.
we have none, that seems to be the preserve of the mad, bad and most decidedly dangerous to know.
it's been proven that monitoring doesn't work, too many people can and do lose themselves here in the capital. He should have been deported, and as someone who was a stone's throw from the bus bomb, can say that we shouldn't be pussyfooting around with nonsense any longer. NJ as far as i am concerned got it spot on. And since we are talking human rights, when was it ever right for ordinary citizens to have their humans rights invaded by cctv on every corner of every building, in every shop, that is something that no one seems to mind or at least think about.

Its the usual speel put out about cctv catching out criminals, like the rioters, well that also catches on camera millions of ordinary law abiding citizens, going about their daily lives, i will never understand the thinking behind them.
em10, if you are so concerned about your human rights being affected by cctv why not bring a case under the HRA :-)

I think there's a lot of confused thinking here. For a start, the issue of "monitoring" terrorists is not the point, it was simply me speculating that not sending this particular person back to Somalia was not necessarily a bad thing from a security point of view - I don't know. The judge made a decision on compassionate grounds. I'm not saying that was the right decision, it quite possibly was not, and almost certainly the ruling will be challenged. What I do not accept is that this ruling should be used, as some people do, to attack Human Rights legislation, especially under the wholly fallacious argument in this context that "we all have a right not to be blown up". That's just letting emotions - perhaps understandably - run away with us to no purpose.
And the other point (which I said I wolud not repeat - oh well !) is that on occasions foreign people in this country, frankly, do need to be protected by our courts. Just because the judge here may have got it wrong does not mean that we should throw out hard-won legislation and a long-standing tolerance of refugees from abroad.
(And I am still not convinced that the HRA and the ECHR have anything to do with it anyway)
Ickeria, my belief for what's it's worth is that no one takes any notice of the little law abiding folk, go to the courts and say by the way i think that cctv is wrong and you will likely be ignored. As to yet another criminal being allowed to stay in Britain, citing his human rights, this patently ignores downright common sense.
Just one more thing from me, ichkeria.

Just how hard was it to "win" this legislation? The Labour government (led by Mr Cherie Booth) could not bring it in quick enough. There was nothing "hard fought" about it at all. It must have been drafted before Labour was elected, and Blair simply whipped his MPs to vote for it.

The much earlier ECHR on which it was based took no fighting at all. All the signatories were more than willing to sign something that demonstrated WW2 was over and we were entering a Brave New World.
New Judge, re the "hard won" human rights legislation - it may have gone through parliament easily enough at the last, but you will no doubt be aware of the years of struggle and flagrant abuses which took place in the decades and centuries beforehand. I can remember not that long ago when a human rights act was being talked of as pie-in-the-sky - a bit like the minimum wage, which was also voted through easily enough at the last, but which came at the end of years when we never thought we would see the like of it actually happen.
He might face cruel and inhumane treatment here if someone who has lost loved ones decides to punish him. I also wonder what is one man compared with the huge amount of Somalis who are now living here. The local school population are half Somalis and although the housing department say not I wonder why it is one of the local housing sites also houses mostly Somalis.
Let's not go back too far, ichkeria - after all small boys were still being sent up chimneys not too long ago.

Just how much "struggle and flagrant abuses" took place in the UK between the enactment of the European Convention on Human Rights (1953) and the passing of the Human Rights Act (1998)? Just how terrible was it here in that time?

Answer - not too bad. The amount of "struggle and flagrant abuses" could not have been that great judging by the huge numbers of people that came here to live and the huge numbers that tried (and are still trying) to settle here by any means possible. So just why was it necessary to pass the 1998 Act?

I have no doubt that some countries blatantly abuse the rights of their citizens – some to an appalling degree. But the UK does not. What I cannot accept and what nobody has been able to explain to me is how it is deemed the responsibility of the UK government to somehow protect people from the excesses of those states just because they happen – often illegally - to have gained entry here. How is it that the UK is deemed guilty of breaches of Human Rights committed by other countries just because they try to deport a foreign national to his country of origin? And why is it that the rights of the vast majority of the population to go about their lives unmolested are suddenly trumped by the need to ensure the worldwide safety of somebody who has entered this country illegally and who has committed serious crime?

If you can demonstrate to me (with some examples) how the UK government has infringed the “Human Rights” of anybody by their actions (not by the potential actions of other States) to such a degree that laws other than HR legislation would not provide a solution, I might be persuaded to alter my stance.

Until then I maintain that the ECHR and the 1998 HR Act are unnecessary and very often result in decisions completely at odds with proper justice.
ichkeria

/// I really didn’t know how else to interpret “..///

I am so glad that at last you admit it.

I refer to you not being able to interpret my words.

"they are not EU citizens, .... (they) head for Holland where they get EU citizenship"

Which is it? :-)

They are not EU citizens, fact.

Then I went on to explain how some get to be EU citizens, by the back door.
New Judge, the UK government clearly infringed the right of the hundreds of people they interned without trial during the Irish 'troubles'
Could they still use internment now that the HRA is in place?
The ECHR was in force during what is euphemistically called “The Troubles” in the 1960s and 70s, Sandy. Our own 1998 Act added nothing to the substance of the Convention. It simply enabled redress to be obtained in the UK courts rather than the matter having to go to Strasbourg. As far as I know (though I am not completely sure) no actions were taken on HR grounds as a result of internment.

However, that is not the point. The UK government determined what was appropriate to deal with “The Troubles”. They should be able to do so without fear of being held hostage to a nebulous piece of legislation which could override the express will of Parliament.

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