David Cameron on ECHR – A Man for all Soundbites

From the august pages of the Daily Mail comes yet another story of David Cameron relying on the ignorance of the population to give the appearance of taking a tough line on ‘Europe’.

But while the issue bringing this latest piece of Cameron PR bullshit to the fore – the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling that Abu Qatada cannot be deported to Jordan, lest evidence obtained under torture is used against him – the story in the Wail shows Cameron is not proposing to do anything about the legal basis for the Court’s decision, thus confirming nothing will change and that his posturing is nothing but meaningless hot air:

David Cameron will this week confront European judges blamed for stopping the deportation of extremist Islamic cleric Abu Qatada and tell them: ‘Stop meddling in  British justice.’

In a hard-hitting speech in Strasbourg, the home of the European Court of Human Rights, the Prime Minister will demand major reforms in the way the court is run.

He will say European judges must be more in touch with public opinion, accept more UK court rulings and let countries protect their own citizens and stop interfering in ‘petty’ cases.

If we use metaphor to explain what Cameron is doing here it demonstrates once again the fatuous nature of his latest intervention…  Cameron has a car that possesses features he does not like.  When the car is used the feature delivers performance he is not happy with.  But rather than focus on the addressing the feature that is affecting the performance, his solution is to demand the driver is changed.  The feature and its performance remain unaffected.

Cameron’s dishonesty is as striking as his lack of principle.  Like it or loathe it, the ECHR is not meddling in British Justice as he puts it.  The UK is signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights and this country’s politicians, past and present, have seen to it this country is bound by its articles making it an integral part of ‘British Justice’. In the Abu Qatada case, below are the passages relevant to the judgement that was passed.

Being resolved, as the Governments of European countries which are like-minded and have a common heritage of political traditions, ideals, freedom and the rule of law to take the first steps for the collective enforcement of certain of the Rights stated in the Universal Declaration;

Have agreed as follows:

ARTICLE 1

The High Contracting Parties shall secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in Section I of this Convention.

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ARTICLE 6

1.In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. Judgement shall be pronounced publicly by the press and public may be excluded from all or part of the trial in the interest of morals, public order or national security in a democratic society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the private life of the parties so require, or the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice.

2.Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.

3.Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights:

(a) to be informed promptly, in a language which he understands and in detail, of the nature and cause of the accusation against him;

(b) to have adequate time and the facilities for the preparation of his defence;

(c) to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing or, if he has not sufficient means to pay for legal assistance, to be given it free when the interests of justice so require;

(d) to examine or have examined witnesses against him and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him;

(e) to have the free assistance of an interpreter if he cannot understand or speak the language used in court.

This is not ‘meddling in British Justice’, this has been made a cornerstone of our justice system.  And for all his whining, Cameron has no intention of trying to change a single letter of the text.  As for the judgement itself, the ECHR has clearly explained why Qatada (Omar Othman) cannot be returned to Jordan.

The UK’s agencies were stupid enough to grant asylum to Abu Qatada in the first place (as they do to so many foreign criminals, terrorists and ne’er do goods who pitch up here) and now want rid of him.  The Jordanians have provided a way out for the UK.  The UK wants to take it.  But Jordan extracts evidence via torture and mistreatment.  Why should that bother us?  After all, Qatada is believed to be part of Al Qaeda, they engage in terrorism and cold blooded murder and wish us harm, so why should we prevent him from facing Jordanian justice?

My response is grounded in a beautiful piece of dialogue in that great 1960s film, A Man for All Seasons, where Sir Thomas More (Paul Schofield) is arguing with his future son-in-law, William Roper about why he will not arrest Richard Rich and has let him leave the house freely despite his efforts to undermine More:

More: Go he should, if he were the Devil, until he broke the law.

Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?  This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s!  And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?  Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

The same holds for Qatada.  While Article 6 prevents his deportation to Jordan, the same Article also protects the rest of us from extradition on the basis that ‘evidence’ against us obtained under duress is likely not safe.  Abu Qatada may very well be the Devil, but I too will give him the benefit of law for my own safety’s sake! If the UK or Jordan want to put Qatada behind bars for the rest of his life, they should obtain incontrovertible evidence of his guilt in a legal and responsible manner.  If they can’t then they have no justification for doing anything other than protecting his rights and liberty.

Cameron’s naked politicking, deceit and ignorance suggest he either doesn’t get it, or more worryingly is determined to trample over our liberties.  What this country needs is a man for all seasons.  What we have is a man for all soundbites.  Truly the heir to Blair.

Ignore Special Immigration Appeals Commission – remove Abu Hamza’s passport

We’re stuck with him. That is the decision of the morons on the Special Immigration Appeals Commission – it would be more accurately described as the Special Immigration Abettor’s Commission – who say that Abu Hamza al-Masri cannot be stripped of his British passport and therefore deported.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the government to take decisive action to put this right. They will roll over as they always do at the first sound of the words ‘Rights, Directive, Judgement, European’.

Surprise, surprise, it is the Human Rights Act once again that comes leaping to the defence of another lawbreaking alien who hates this country and works actively to do it harm, yet cravenly seeks the protection its liberal laws provide. Despite there being no proof that Egypt has withdrawn Hamza’s citizenship, the Commission has decided it is so and said Hamza must keep the British citizenship he acquired through marriage, or else he would become stateless.

So bloody what?

Perhaps if we showed some guts and acted in our own interests the spiteful hate mongers who come to this country and are determined to attack it at every turn would learn there are consequences for their actions and stay away. This bleeding heart decision is a travesty and exposes how we have been weakened by the community of activists judges and campaigners who pontificate about moral superiority and are loathe to take action against those who mean us harm.

As it is Abu Hamza is still fighting a case in the European Court of Human Rights to prevent deportation to the United States for investigation into alleged terror offences. No doubt the left wing academics who make up that illegitimate kangaroo court will fall over themselves to rule that he must not face justice and must stay in Britain, taking up a prison cell or sponging off the welfare state.

Abu Hamza al-Masri and his ilk will be laughing like drains at the stupidity of these moronic commissioners whose hand wringing further undermines the interests of this nation. The man is Egyptian. His own country despises him and refused him a new passport, but it has never stated that his citizenship has been revoked. We should test it by putting his oversized, taxpayer subsidised arse on a plane to Cairo and permanently refusing him entry to this country again.

If the Egyptians don’t want Hamza, for a few hundred dollars they can strap him into seat on a plane bound for Washington where the Americans are very eager to play host to him. In fact, a phone call to the US Embassy would probably see a transport aircraft divert to Egypt to pick him up and save Egyptian taxpayers the trouble of sending him packing.

ECHR stops Dutch removing failed asylum seekers

Yet again the judicial activists at the European Court of Human Rights are using power they should not have to tell democratically elected parliamentarians, this time in the Netherlands, they cannot follow a course of action that has been discussed and voted upon. The Klein Verzet blog has the story and goes on to say:

That little episode shows you who our real masters are. Any pretence of being a sovereign, independent nation is just that: pretension. So, the question is now: What are we going to do?

At some point that question, which is increasingly being asked by people in EU member states, will have to be answered.

The sick spectacle that is John Hirst

The only word to describe it is ‘sick’.

The Daily Politics gave airtime to the BBC’s latest curiosity, John Hirst. The so called Jailhouse Lawyer, who was nothing more than a prison plaintiff, listened to Andrew Neil describe the manner in which Hirst took an axe, put the kettle on, killed a defenceless woman with the axe, then made himself a cup of tea. Hirst then grinned broadly, laughed and thanked Neil for the graphic account.

He laughed.

The family of Hirst’s victim, Bronia Burton, should not be subjected to the sick spectacle of the mentally unstable, aggressive killer of their relative being paraded across television and radio to bask in the limelight of a stomach churning celebratory tour. Hirst’s behaviour demonstrated what a grotesque and unpleasant person he is. Nothing has changed since this profile of him published in the Guardian in 2006.

Despite 25 years in prison (after being sentenced to 15) for submitting a plea of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, there is no indication that John Hirst has been in any way been rehabilitated. He denies committing violent offences in prison that saw his sentence steadily increase, claiming he only served 10 additional years because he challenged their authority and demanded his ‘rights’.  The sick irony of Hirst demanding the entitlements that progressive idiots have taken upon themselves to redefine as rights – after Hirst denied Bronia Burton to a genuine human right, the right to life – should not be lost on anyone. The hypocrisy is staggering.

Hirst considers himself intelligent and learned after completing a degree while in prison and challenging the ban on prison inmates having the vote. But he was pathetically incapable of answering why prisoners such as him should be entitled to participate in the democratic process. He simply repeated over and over that prisoners should vote because it is their human right, before throwing personal insults at Andrew Neil for having the temerity to ask perfectly reasonable questions. If anything, the thoroughly revolting Hirst actually demonstrated there are people who plainly unfit to be allowed to vote and should be barred from participating in the electoral process.

The European Court of Human Rights agreed with Hirst back in 2005. But then, it would given it is largely comprised of socialist progressive placemen whose legal experience does not include training as counsel, practicing in courts and subsequently becoming judges. Many of the members of the ECHR bench are nothing more than academics who studied or taught law and have perpetuated the liberal agenda of upholding ‘rights’ for offenders while thumbing their noses at the law abiding in society who are trampled on by the bureaucracy that infests our lives. Such people should have no place handing down rulings to anyone.

The ECHR should not have legitimacy, but it has because the political classes who make up the Council of Europe signed up to be bound by its rulings in a fit of bien pensant idiocy. The ECHR should not have the competence to effectively create law. But it does because the political class did not challenge the ECHR awarding itself the ability to do so. Not for the first time the chickens are coming home to roost, but yet again the political class is sticking its head in the sand to avoid having to admit they got something wrong.

Against such a backdrop it is no surprise Hirst’s unworthy challenge successed and that he has subsequently been given a platform for his obnoxious grandstanding. After all this is declining Britain in the 21st Century, where common sense and decency are sneered at and the honest and law abiding are under continuous attack. However, at some point the people will hit back. Hard.