[ql06] CRIMINAL: Law Lord Calls Guantanamo As He Sees It
- From: Stephen Kennedy <2srk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: ql06@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 19:41:35 -0500
Just when I was feeling a little contemptuous of the House of Lord, along
comes this little gem from one of England's most senior law lords.
I remember Lord Steyn from Spain's attempt to extradite General Pinochet from
the UK to try him for crimes against humanity. Pinochet's lawyers managed to
get a ruling from a lower court prohibiting his extradition on the grounds
that he was entitled to immunity as a former head of state.
Steyn and the rest of the law lords were having none of that argument, and
allowed the Spanish government's appeal. This put the British government in a
real pickle because old Pinochet was a good friend of former PM Thacher.
The British government squirmed out by allowing Pinochet to return to Chile
because of poor health in 1999. A true travesty of justice.
Incidentally, yesterday was Pinochet's 88th birthday. He announced he was
fit, and "felt like an angel." As one human rights activist quipped, a more
appropriate label would be an "angel of death."
Enough digression, here goes Lord Steyn on Guantanamo:
Published on Wednesday, November 26, 2003 by the Telegraph/UK
'Monstrous US Justice' Attacked by Law Lord
by Joshua Rozenberg
One of Britain's most senior judges condemned the American courts last night
for a "monstrous failure of justice" by refusing to rule on the claims of
Taliban suspects held without trial at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Lord Steyn, a serving law lord, said the United States was acting illegally
by holding the men without trial since their transfer from Afghanistan early
last year.
"By denying the prisoners the right to raise challenges in a court about
their alleged status and treatment, the United States government is in breach
of the minimum standards of customary international law," he said.
Giving the annual F A Mann lecture arranged by the law firm Herbert Smith in
London last night, Lord Steyn accused the world's most powerful democracy of
"detaining hundreds of suspected foot soldiers of the Taliban in a legal
black hole at the United States naval base at Guantanamo Bay, where they
await trial on capital charges by military tribunals".
But these tribunals, or "commissions", were not independent courts, he said.
"The term 'kangaroo court' springs to mind. It derives from the jumps of the
kangaroo, and conveys the idea of a pre-ordained arbitrary rush to judgment
by an irregular tribunal which makes a mockery of justice.
"International military commissions at Guantanamo Bay will be so regarded.
Trials of the type contemplated by the United States government would be a
stain on United States justice. The only thing that could be worse is simply
to leave the prisoners in their black hole indefinitely." Lord Steyn avoids
political debates in the House of Lords, but he asked yesterday: "Ought our
government to make plain publicly and unambiguously our condemnation of the
utter lawlessness at Guantanamo Bay?"
The law lord left his audience in no doubt where his own feelings lay by
quoting the famous meditation of John Donne, the 17th century poet and
preacher: "No man is an island, entire of itself . . . Any man's death
diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; And therefore never send to
know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."
Lord Steyn, 71, the third most senior law lord, said that under English law
the writ of habeas corpus would protect citizens and foreigners. That was
consistent with human rights law, which Lord Steyn concluded, the US had
broken.
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003
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