Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Good. Lib Dems are pulling a fast one here and making retention of the Act a resigning issue. Note that a) Justice Secretary Ken Clarke knows the score and isn't an idiot and b) Lord Tom McNally is also in his department and is a thoroughly sound left wing Lib Dem, who started off in the Labour Party.

So, tabloids and shrill idiots, up yours. A victory for British justice.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Don't suppose you would have a link?

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

There's a Telegraph article, plus following a lot of Lib Dems on Twitter yesterday (Huhne and McNally made it clear to their conference that they'd resign if the HRA was scrapped) but mainly the people put into Justice aren't the people you'd put in to serve a tabloid anti-human rights agenda, they've got their own minds (Clarke) and firm principles (McNally).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ights-Act.html

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Well that sounds good but frankly the tabloids have been given too much power by all parties including his.:(

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

and how exactly is this good news ? i thought it was possibly the most hated piece of euro legislation there was:shrug:

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

By some - to others, it is an excellent piece of legislation sometimes abused by lawyers, and is a handy scapegoat for the tabloid press to hang their vilifications upon.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

yay more terrorists can stay in the country.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Really? Provide a link to the relevant section of the Human Rights Acts that permits that please.

Thanks :)

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Article 3. :)

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...icle715558.ece

It's not ideal, in fact personally I think it's a complete pain in the rear, but I can't ever see it being repealed.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

The problem is that you either have human rights for all or you have human rights for no one.There is no halfway house.It's all or nothing.:erm:

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

:clap:

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

I don't think there are many people who would want a complete repealing of the HRA but a rewrite and some common sense brought into it would be very welcome. Right now this piece of legislation is responsible for some truly stupid rulings and waste of both public money and court time. Sorry but any legislation that can be used by criminals to profit for themselves after commiting a crime needs binning and rewriting but then maybe i am just being too intolerent and right wing :).

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Then i vote nothing until they re-write it and get it right. There are to many cases of barristers using it to get the **** of the world off on a HRA technicality

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

:tu:

Yep. The thought behind it is admirable but the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. Other countries don't seem to have the same problems the UK has with it.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

yes you can have human rights for everyone ,but as forever said this particular piece of legislation gets abused and we end up with criminals using it to get shorter sentences or compensation or illegal immigrants being allowed to stay the list goes on ,and a lot of the time human rights have not been broken .
There has to be some leaway within the legislation to stop criminals abusing it

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

And yet it is the same piece of legislation Europe wide, so in theory other countries should be having the same problems. The only new part for the UK was that people were not meant to have to go to the ECHR for decisions.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

maybe other euro countries are showing some common sense with the legislation and not allowing criminals to use it

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

How can they, when it's the same Law.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

I was addressing those who seem to think that Human Rights can only be for SOME people and not for others.My point is this.If you make exceptions just where does it end?Who is deemed more worthy than others and by whom?

I'm saying you can't have pick and choose rules/laws.They either cover everyone or no one.

Of course you can amend and rewrite and make clearer certain aspects BUT human rights have to be applied to all.After all even the most innocent have been known to have been arrested,charged,found guilty,sentenced to death/prison and then years later been exonerated of any crime..If some had their way this would happen far more often than it does at present.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

not sure that's not a human rights issue though ,that is down to evidence .
yes every one should have the same basic human rights ,but some people should lose some aswell not hide behind them

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

That's a judge interpretation but surely we can agree that it is right people are not subjected to 'inhuman treatment'?

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Maybe other Euro countries don't have the rabid over the top tabloid press that will exaggerate, blatantly make things up and generally print everything they see fit if they think it'll sell a few more papers.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

whats wrong with the press printing articles about criminals using the HRA to their benifit or illegal immigrants claiming that being deported is a breach of the same ,don't you think we have a right to know ?

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

How can some people lose some human rights without all of us losing those same rights? :confused:

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Seeing as the stories refer to real court cases, I assume you mean that other countries don't report(ie censor) them, when they happen in their own country.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

There's nothing wrong with thruthful reporting, even if slightly biased. What is wrong is jumping on any perceived newsworthy item and twisting and changing or even making things up to sell a few newspapers, something which the Taboids are quite happy to do.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

not just in this country ,that happens all over the world it's the nature of the press

---------- Post added at 19:51 ---------- Previous post was at 19:48 ----------

because they don't deserve them of course :rolleyes: the right to freedom is taken away from people all the time by judges

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

That's because UK judges apply the letter of the law, whilst others....

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

It is very good news IMO.

As for it being hated... Well, yes it is very hated by certain sections of the right-wing press. Some seem to think it's an example of those pesky foreigners in Europe "forcing their rights on the UK"... although it's actually more a case of the UK exporting its traditional rights to Europe, given the history of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Human Rights Act 1998 incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into British Law.

The HRA enables people to go to court in the UK to seek redress regarding breaches of the Convention. Before the HRA, the only choice people had was to take a case before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (very costly in both time & money). The HRA also means that public bodies in the UK must not act in a way which is incompatible with the Convention, and means that Judges must take into account the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, plus must try and interpret legislation in a way which is compatible with the Convention (although Parliament remains sovereign).

The European Court of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights that the Court enforces, and the Council of Europe that they are both a part of, are not part of the European Union.

They were created in the aftermath of WWII, as a bulwark against tyranny, & one of their early champions was that well known tree-hugging pinko-commie liberal do-gooder Sir Winston Churchill.

The Convention was primarily drafted by British legal experts, incorporating many traditionally British fundamental rights and freedoms such as the Right to a Fair Trial, the Right to Liberty and Security of Person, the Right to Freedom of Expression, the Right to Freedom of Religion, etc. etc. Its inspirations included the Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights 1689.

The man who oversaw the drafting of the Convention was Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, a lawyer, judge, and Tory MP, who as well as serving in various roles in Government (as Solicitor General, Attorney General and later Lord Chancellor) was also Britain's day to day chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.


Yes, some people do try to abuse the HRA as they do other laws, but I wouldn't be without it. I believe that the HRA & ECHR are British creations we should be proud of.

Yes, we have a right to know... But it helps if the articles are actually accurate (many are not).

Certain sections of the press like to print stories which are, at best, "inaccurate"...

e.g. The Sun had a story claiming that Serial killer Dennis Nilsen allegedly used the Human Rights Act to enable him to obtain "hardcore gay porn" while in prison. Turned out to be utter rubbish.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...ticle48194.ece


And the actual facts...

http://www.dca.gov.uk/peoples-rights...ull_review.pdf

Section 4 "Myths & Misperceptions" (pages 29-34)

So, even though Nilsen failed at "the first hurdle" (*and* every subsequent hurdle) to use the HRA to obtain "access to a book containing gay artwork and depictions of male nudity, and uncensored access to a mainstream top-shelf gay magazine" (rather than "OMG! Hardcore gay porn!!!"), certain sections of the Press somehow twisted it into a successful victory, which conveniently supported their ongoing anti-HRA BS.


It's actually definitely worth having a read of the PDF linked above, if you want to know about the HRA & how it has been used & how it has regularly & repeatedly been misreported:

http://www.dca.gov.uk/peoples-rights...ull_review.pdf

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

What's 'euro' about it?

*popcorn*

[and what Matt D says, obviously]

The effect of repeal would be to increase the cost of justice, since we'd still be signatories to the ECHR and UK citizens and indeed anyone else would have the right to take their cases to Strasbourg*, and withdrawing from that would be a) extremely costly and b) send an absolutely cast-iron message to dictators and badasses everywhere that 'don't worry, chaps, we're on your side now with all the torturing and extra-judicial murder'.

Er, yes. If you read the ECHR you'll easily spot the bits that say 'unless such-and-such happens'. The Convention therefore explicitly allows deprivation of liberty *after due process in a court of law*. Actually, quite a lot of the ECHR is intended not to enable criminals to do things but to stop Governments doing things like locking people up without due process. This is generally considered a good thing and why being British means something unique and worthwhile.

* Where, deliciously, there's only one British judge, while under HRA all the judges are British. HRA opponents are therefore advocating having foreigners decide more British court cases.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Cases can still end up at the ECHR with non-British Judges.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

They certainly can.

It means we can get judgements such as this :)

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Thanks for that Matt D ,interesting read and does show the truth of the matter .

I have never doubted that the press exagerate these things but it has to be said that if these stories are only reported in the press ,with government spokesmen NOT taking the oportunity to respond with the actual facts then they can't be surprised when the great unwashed only believe what's in the currant bun ,or the daily fail .If the government did use right of reply a bit more often and backed it up with hard proof then maybe we would see a bit more accurate reporting from the press[COLOR="Silver"]

---------- Post added at 20:52 ---------- Previous post was at 20:45 ----------

i know that it's maggie that doesn't

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Eh?

All I've done is defend the fact that we have a human rights act that is applied equally to all...and pointed out you cannot just have human rights just for the righteous among us. That it's not a pick and choose way to apply it.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

but we do ,we remove rights for the unrighteous via a judge and due process
you are giving the impression(to me any way)that everyone is deserving of all human rights and i don't see that ,i believe that rights should be removed for those not deserving of them ,of course this should be done by means of the law ,and has been pointed out this is allowed in the HRA

How i see it is that EVERYONE gets the same rights untill a person commits a crime then some of those rights are removed and rightly so

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

No problem.


One problem I think is that Govt. spokesmen do not always seem to bothered about responding with actual facts, plus of course sometimes it seemed that the Government was more interested in pandering to the Sun & Mail rather than pointing out how they may have been inaccurate.

The DCA report I linked to is very interesting, but of course not something which would have received much press.

---------- Post added at 21:15 ---------- Previous post was at 21:13 ----------

[ btw, I've edited the last few posts as the quote tags were completely screwed ]

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

So what rights would you have removed from a criminal and when?

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

well ,me not being a criminal have the right to freedom ,criminals don't (untill the law says they can have it back) some don't get it back at all and some are denied the right to live

i don't know what your point is Maggie you should know that the whole point of a judicial system is to remove certain rights from individuals who commit crimes

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

No it's not,the whole point is to punish and deter not remove human rights.:rolleyes:

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Any chance of subtitles?

The ECHR *is* the law, obviously. Notably it doesn't actually prohibit the death penalty, either, unless you sign Protocol 13 (which we have).

What it does do is stop the Government doing the kind of things usually associated with repressive, totalitarian or fascist regimes, such as arbitrary arrest, confiscation of assets, imprisonment without trial or due process of law. It also allows free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly etc.

It's odd that it all comes down to 'criminals rights' stuff, but that's the tabloids for you. It's almost as if they have a vested interest in strong unaccountable government.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Punished by removing certain rights.
Of course when it comes to deportation, then suddenly their human rights can't be removed.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Even punishment must follow and allow certain human rights.Some here would remove ALL human rights from all in prison.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Yes, that's why no one's ever deported from the UK.

Oh hang on. They are. Quite a lot of them. Often in circumstances that would appal the flintiest heart.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

I was wondering that ....

Why ?

There is nothing stopping you making laws that restrict the rights of some - prisoners, terrorists, whatever - take your pick.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

and some(only some;)) in prison deserve to have all human rights removed

i agree that punishment in prison should follow and allow some rights and the HRA is there to make sure that we ,as a society or even individuals don't step over the boundaries of what rights are allowed to be removed by the sentence a criminal has received .The problem is that the general public (myself included)have the perception that the HRA is being used by criminals to get softer sentencing or illegal immigrants not being deported ,as BBKing and MattD have pointed out this is not necessarily the case ,not enough acurate information is being circulated about how it is being used

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Section 33 of the UK Borders Act 2007 details those who are exempt from the provisions of automatic deportation. There are six exemptions, such as where an individual raises a claim for Asylum and Human Rights

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Does an exemption from automatic deportation due to raising a claim regarding Asylum or Human Rights = therefore never get deported at all?

If someone raises a claim regarding Asylum or Human Rights, what is wrong with halting auto-deportation & allowing that claim to be heard?

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Restrict not remove...and even then the restrictions must follow human RIGHTS of sorts...

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

So you agree that their deportation can be stopped on human rights grounds?

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Stopped PENDING investigation - Yes! Then provided the law is followed and they have no grounds to stay they should be deported.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

I think I have understood what you've said, ie what you believe should happen, and I agree, if someone has comitted a serious crime they should be deported, even if their an asylum seeker or risk injury/death on their return to their home land.
However at the momeent, if they can show it will breach their human rights, they can prevent deportation, ergo their human rights cannot be removed despite committing awful crimes.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

That's exactly what happens - claim rejected, these days you're very quickly in handcuffs and down Yarls Wood, then on a plane.

What people tend to mix up in this are the cases where deportation would lead to a likelihood of the country deported to taking action against the individual which would violate the ECHR, in which case there's a presumption on basic 'don't be an idiot' grounds not to deport. The problem isn't the ECHR, the government or the courts but the repressive regime at the other end.

For extra brownie points, under what circumstances can the UK legally deport EU citizens?

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Or maybe even this one.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8688501.stm

Excellent. The court admits he is a terrorist yet his human rights trump any of his potential victims. :(

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Why should that be our problem when it comes to deporting someone who's comitted a serious crime?
You don't think that such action (to be returned to their original country where they may face torture and death) would be an additional deterrent to comitting a crime?
If it's not, then they're accepting the outcome when they comit the crime, just as anyone who breaks the law accepts the punishment that is likely to result from being caught.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

:tu: :clap:

---------- Post added at 13:20 ---------- Previous post was at 13:20 ----------

hmmm... that sounds about right yup..... :mad:

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Like the Sun??

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

and the Mail, although I have to say the worst for inventing things in general is the Mirror.

At the moment though we have the Beeb (not known for being a rabid tabloid although known for making news up or misreporting it) stating that deportations have been denied, not because there hasn't been court cases brought against the accused, but because sending them back to Pakistan (where their cohorts have already returned of their own accord mind you) would be against their human rights.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

just thinking:
1. illegal immigrant.
2. build bomb in such a sloppy way the filth couldn't help notice.
3. get to stay in the country after arguing your life will be at risk if sent home.
4. result.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Thing is, if you can successfully argue your life would be at risk if sent home, you can just claim asylum.

What I think is a reasonable agreement is that if you wish to move here you do not comit any serious crimes.

I know the analogy has been used before, but if you let a tramp into your home to eat and wash, and he then smashes up your furniture, why is it unreasonable to boot him out onto the street where he has no food/shelter and could die?

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

He wasn't charged with anything and wasn't convicted of anything. These were, and indeed are, allegations which even his defence have not been privy to.

As Pierce says "If people have committed a crime, put them on trial."

It's starting to look like MI5/6 chinese whispers are what pass for due process and justice these days.

Time to start really worrying I think.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

The worrying thing I mentioned earlier is that his deportation cancellation wasn't based on him not standing trial.

Do I think he should have been deported? Only if he'd been tried properly and found guilty.
So for me, the result was the right one, but how it was reached was not the right path.
We should not be trying to deport anyone who is not guilty of a crime, and we should be deporting anyone who is guilty of a serious crime no matter how they may be treated in their own country.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Because we're the good guys. End of story.

Mind you, we're perfectly happy deporting people to Iraq, Iran and Zimbabwe even now, so if you're worried that we aren't deporting enough people to dangerous or murderous regimes, rest assured we probably are and you can leave the HRA alone, thanks.

-- edit --

Er, you're forgetting stage 2.5, 'spend 40 years in jail without a sniff of parole'. Not sure the argument stands up.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

We aren't forcing them to comit serious crimes.

But you said we're the good guys. Wait a minute! If you're wrong about that, maybe you're wrong about everything else you've said.
After all, I made the comment that when it comes to deportation, human rights can't be removed, which you tried to suggest wasn't the case, yet dear Auntie reported today that someone's deportation cannot go ahead not because they hadn't had a fair trial, but because their human rights cannot be removed. Looks like you were wrong with that too then.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

A bit of good news to come from the Lib-Con coalition, I know that Ken Clark was always against his party withdrawing from the act.
Now lets wait for the barrage of vilification from the Express, Mail and Sun.:rolleyes:

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Funny how so often being the "good guys" ends up translating to being a doormat.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

What parts would you re-write?

---------- Post added at 12:55 ---------- Previous post was at 12:48 ----------

Because more often than not the stories are lies or exaggerations of the truth. Most of the stories' headlines are reporting that the human rights act is responsible for many decisions in a court, when they are simply not. It is not until later that we find that it is another piece of legislation, most likely contractual law and nothing to do with human rights. Or indeed, no story at all because applications fail at the first stage.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Another personal favourite is the 'report someone's attempt to use HRA to do something silly as if it succeeded'. Dennis Nilsen's attempt to get hardcore gay porn supplied to him is the classic example here, without the corresponding fact that it was thrown out immediately as being idiotic.

This is an isotope of the 'so and so's in court charged with a crime, therefore they're guilty' press mindset*, which if you think about it completely inverts the meaning of what a court is for.

On the deportation thing, I note that our new Government has pledged to...

* 'A man was a vicious murderous killer who should be locked up forever, a court heard today' is the usual form of words, omitting until later the obvious fact that this is the prosecution case rather than the court's judgement on the evidence.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Which rules out Malawi, presumably

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

What if they're found guilty of being a vicious murderous killer?
If they are willing to kill someone with the knowledge that they'll be deported to a country where their sexual orientation or gender identification puts them at proven risk of imprisonment, torture or execution, then they have accepted that risk, just as if they'd jumped on a plane home of their own accord.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Then that is how it should be reported, but not until they have been proven, by conviction, of being so.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Why do we have to actually deport people back to a specific country?
Surely it would be enough to say that they are no longer welcome in the UK and leave it to them to decide where they go. I believe in ancient times it was called 'banishment'. Where somebody is a serious criminal or security risk the court should be able to say that they have a set amount of time to leave this country. Leave it to them where and how as that is really not our responsibility.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

That's not quite what you were saying about the 'murdering' SPG was it?

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Well, seeing as we will never know, as there won't be any trial, all we have is our own conclusions.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

The problem with that is if the destinaton country doesn't want them, they can just refuse them entry and force them back onto the vehicle which brought them.
Quite often we have to try and find other countries willing to take them simply because if they go back to where they were born they'd have their human rights infringed. Makes the whole thing cost a hell of a lot more and last a hell of a lot longer than it needs to.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

But that's my point. It should not be *OUR* responsibility to find a country to take them. If you had a guest in your house that abused your hospitality you would require them to leave. In exactly the same way, if someone abuses our country's welcome we should require them to leave. The logistics of where and how they go should not be our concern.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

:clap:

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Ok, think of it like this with your analogy, they can't go outside there is no "outside" all they can do is leave your house and directly enter someone else's house.
Now if that other house refuses to let them in, the only place they can go is back to your house.
You can try to refuse to let them in, but then you get the situation like the Terminal, or are you expecting them to live off the airline?

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Using the term 'murdering' implies you DO know however. It implies you know he was deliberately killed but thanks for clarifying that you don't know any such thing and that the title of that thread:

Blair Peach murderer esapes justice

.. was therefore wholly inappropriate and its main assertion unfair.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

I understand what you are saying. However, in the majority of cases the offenders will have travelled through many other countries to get to the UK. If they were able to make that journey then I see no reason why they should not set off travelling again until they find someone to take them in.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Because you cannot force another country to allow them entry.
It's not a case of put them on a boat or a plane and say goodbye, then expect them to be allowed through passport control to go on their merry way never to return.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

The flaw in this (and Xaccers') analogy is, as BBKing pointed out, that you have neglected to include the jail sentence, which is the punishment for the crime.

For some reason, many people seem to think that those not born here should be punished twice - once in a court of law, and again by "banishment". How can you defend that as "justice"?

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Quite easily.
The prison sentence is punishment for committing a serious crime.
The deportation is punishment for abusing the gift of residence in our nation by breaking the law.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Did you forget the smiley at the end of that post?

How can it be a gift if it comes with the requirement to pay taxes?

Again I'll ask - is it justice for "immigrants" to be punished twice for a crime?

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Two seperate crimes. One the serious crime against an individual or individuals such as murder, rape, abuse. One the crime of abusing the gift of being allowed to live here.
To use the house analogy, you allow someone into your home, they buy you a takeaway, then smash up your TV. They're found guilty of criminal damage and spend a week in prison. Is it really unjust for you to then not let them into your home again?
Ok, I'm probably going to have to give you the answer to that as you're probably going to get it wrong :rolleyes:
No of course it isn't unjust. They abused your gift of allowing them into your home.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

You are abusing the term "gift".

A more apt analogy would be: you take a lodger into your home, he pays you rent; he commits a crime, he is punished for that crime; then when he comes back to his rented accommodation he finds that you have put his belongings in a pile on a muddy patch at the end of the garden.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

So you believe it would be unjust to refuse to rent a room in your home to a convicted murderer/rapist/child molester?

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

I think a home and a country are not really comparable are they.

Re: Human Rights Act to be retained
 

Because if they were, I think the bailiffs would be repossessing the UK at the moment. ;)