[lit-ideas] Britain's Human Rights Act in trouble?
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas " <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2011 06:35:34 -0700
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8801651/Home-Secretary-scrap-the-Hu
man-Rights-Act.html
The Home Secretary, Theresa May, according to this article by Patrick
Hennessey in "The Telegraph" is calling for the scrapping of the Human
Rights Act. On the face of it, in this world of sound bites, this sounds
outrageous. Who wants to get rid of Human Rights who is not an Islamist or
the leader of an authoritarian government? No one. But it is not human
rights the Home Secretary wants to do away with, just this (apparently)
poorly constructed bill.
A couple of examples of its "failure" are presented: "In one of the
highest-profile cases involving convicts and their human rights claims, a
failed asylum seeker who killed 12-year-old Amy Houston, from Blackburn, in
a road accident, used the law to avoid deportation.
"Other shocking examples uncovered by this newspaper include an Iraqi who
killed two doctors but successfully argued that it would breach his rights
to send him home."
I don't know if we have anything in the U.S. - we probably do, but what
comes to mind is one of our "rights" in our Bill of Rights: the prohibition
against unlawful search and seizure. A policeman in the U.S. is prohibited
from pulling a car over or entering a house and going on a searching
expedition. He has to have a reason, a "probable cause." I quite agree
with this "right" and would hate to lose it. We do have cases where
criminals go free because this right was violated, but policemen have been
trained in what they can and can't do; so it isn't an impossible situation
for them. Britain has comparable laws so this "human rights" issue isn't
quite that.
The British examples seem different and they relate to earlier discussions
about immigration. If Britain is prevented from sending non-British
undesirables and criminals back where they came from that seems to work
against the common good.
Complicating this matter is an agreement Britain has with the EU that allows
non-British governments to arrest British citizens and non-citizens
(presumably) whether Britain likes it or not. These "European Arrest
Warrants," are "valid in all member states of the EU and saw 1,000 people in
Britain last year seized by police on the orders of European prosecutors, a
51 per cent rise in 12 months."
Hennessey doesn't tell us that any of these European Arrest Warrants have
been unjust or unreasonable and if not the problem with them might merely be
that they make many in Britain, especially the Eurosceptics, a wee bit
insecure. They would bother me.
The two problems aren't on the face of it incompatible. I see no reason why
someone couldn't want the "Human Rights Act" rewritten or replaced and at
the same time want to give Britain a veto-right over the seizure of its
citizens by prosecutors of European courts. But I imagine they can be
presented in a way that makes them appear to be incompatible.
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