To not give a toss about Abu Qatada's human rights?

[wannaBe]

So he came here on a fake passport, is a radical suspected of plotting God-knows-what, and yet we apparently shouldn't deport him back to where he came from (regardless of the fact he is here illegally) because he might be persecuted back in Jordan?

Now if this was an innocent person who meant no harm to others who had come here illegally I would be more sympathetic.

But it's not.

Live by the sword, die by the sword and all that.

flatpackhamster

"I don't have a disdain for people. What I have is a loathing for the idea that Big Law can protect us from Big Government. People like TheUnMember basically want human rights legislation so that they can apply their own prejudices to people's lives. People have to decide on their own what 'rights' are and universality is a fantasy."

What??

Human rights legislation puts everyone on an even level, thus protecting everyone from abuse at a basic level. It's specifically so you can't apply personal moral judgments or views upon whole groups of people or individuals.

The point of law is the same; people commonly agree what is/isn't legal and what the punishments should be for infringements of the laws, so there is a line.

Democracy means that we have collectively decided what "rights" are, so i'm not sure what you're arguing, except that you, as an individual, don't like these laws.

And if you don't, then the beuty of democracy is that you can campaign to change them!

LOL whatme a bit like Napoleon?

So much easier to just torture someone into agreeing with you, though, no?

(Irony,for those who might have missed it)

"wealthy, well-educated left-wing middle class made law" the european governments who have passed this law and are upholding it are predominantly right of centre - right wing...

surely, you're not going to try and claim that SarKozy, Merkel, Blair et al are left wing?

The prison population of the UK is the highest in Europe, but that's still only about 100,000 people, so only 100,000 maximum votes with the other 62 million being what? Powerless? Their votes aren't exactly going to change the face of politics in this country.

And finally, laws and amendments to them happen all the time. Old laws are removed when they become irrelevant and new laws are added. I doubt the HRA will be set in stone, but I would like to think that we will never return to a society where women are second class citizens devoid of the vote or that gay men and women are killed or imprisioned for their sexuality.

Democracy means that we have collectively decided what "rights" are, so i'm not sure what you're arguing, except that you, as an individual, don't like these laws.

Actually, the European Convention of Human Rights has had nary a whiff of democratic process in its evolution so far. Having said that, IMO they are by and large the Good Guys.

It is also interesting to see that the UK is not a signatory to Protocol 4, which is the one dealing with allowing entry to, and expulsion of, foreigners. So in theory we can expel him, EHCR or no EHCR.

LOL whatme a bit like Napoleon?

Yes - I reckon some small state could make a decent business of taking Other People's Unexilable Undesirables on at a fee :o

yes and the UK shouldn't have to give him any money, him or his family.

I think that is what gets on my nerves so much. He hates our way of life so much and the West is so awful etc but he wouldn't be allowed to say any of these things if he lived in Jordan or have all the freebies that the West have offered him. He may actually have to do something productive for his family to live and eat.

if he still lived in Jordan wouldn't he have disappeared a long time ago and we would be none the wiser

I feel sympathy for people who live in oppressive regimes and then are tortured and put in prison for being the wrong religion or accidently criticising the government.

My dad has always said it would be very useful to have a small island for former dictators so they don't have to fight to the end, a kind of retirement home for baddies

They could go there

whatmeworry but, didn't we elect the guys who have signed and ratified the ECHR? We asked them to be our representatives, didn't we?

and I think the UK has signed, but not ratified Protocol 4 (according to wiki!)

It doesn't matter who drafted, signed up to or ratified the ECHR.

Our obligations, in respect of extraditing for a trial in which evidence obtained under torture could be used, arises from the UN convention against torture, to which the (elected) British government chose to become a signatory.

It must be possible to send him to Jordan and pay a big enough bribe to ensure he is treated very well by their legal system. Or come to another kind of mutually beneficial arrangement. Or have impartial monitors checking on his welfare. There must be a way of doing it now without him coming to harm.

Here is the text of CAT which UK signed and ratified in the 1980s.

whatmeworry but, didn't we elect the guys who have signed and ratified the ECHR? We asked them to be our representatives, didn't we?

More accurately the people we voted for nominated the people who provided our input to this treaty. Similar to all the European treaties the Uk has adopted. I note UKIP is building quite a nice constituency around the very argument that this is not democratic.

and I think the UK has signed, but not ratified Protocol 4 (according to wiki!)

Sorry I meant to write ratify. Until we ratify it it doesn't apply.

Abra1d: we can now send him to Jordan, because the Home Secretary has recently obtained assurances that material derived from torture will not be used at any trial (and presumably that he himself will not be tortured). That is why we are now in a legal end game (I hope).

"I note UKIP is building quite a nice constituency around the very argument that this is not democratic."

of course they are, whilst claiming expenses for being MEPs and using them to fund their UK constituencies and campaigns against the EU...

Is your view that it's more a House of Lords scenario for the development of/input to this treaty? (genuinely interested)

I still think it's a good document that our democratically elected MEPs/MPs have to agree with in order for it to be passed into our laws.

BornSicky

But the ECHR is applying personal views to the lives of people. It's telling people that everyone, no matter how evil or vicious or mendacious or lazy, has the same 'rights'.

Look at the ECHR's ruling on torture. They say that torture is wrong, full stop. I'm inclined to agree with them. But if you know that torturing a terrorist to get information out of them will stop a terrorist attack, is it wrong then? How many innocent lives are you prepared to sacrifice in order to preserve one person? I think that, morally, it's a grey area and I don't think it's simply possible to legislate morality.

But here we are, legislating morality. Thomas Paine wrote that our rights are inherently within us and that any document seeking to codify those rights was restricting them, and I agree with him.

It doesn't matter whether or not there are 1 or 100,000 prisoners with the vote. I think that the principle that prisoners should be entitled to vote is wrong. They've abrogated all responsibility and they've paid the price for their criminality. Why should they be treated like other citizens? They haven't earned the right to vote.

I agree with a comment made on 'Question Time'. When someone threatens our freedoms, be it to security, or Democracy as a whole then at that point more than ever we must make sure that we are being more Democratic then ever otherwise we have no rights to denounce other countries for the way they treat their citizens. I hate this man and his kind (not least because I am married to a Muslim and despise what these people have done to the reputation of decent Muslims) but I think it is so important that he is seen to have been treated with the fairness & decency that he would never have afforded any of his victims.

flatpackhamster

It's not possible to "know" that torture will obtain the correct or even any existing knowledge of a terrorist attack which the person you are torturing may or may not have knowledge of.

There's no grey area. Torture is physical or psychologically harm to a person to pressurise them to tell the torturer what they want to hear.

and if we're quoting philosophers... Jean-Paul Sartre said that our actions made us "legislators for mankind". So, by doing anything we were setting examples for others of what was reasonable or normal or to be condoned. I don't want anyone to think that torture is normal or to be condoned or reasonable, under any circumstances. No one deserves to be brutalised, no matter what their suspected crime.

Any brutalisation is more usually undertaken once someone is sent to prison rather than by the police or security services.

Child abusers and terrorist bombers for example have a very hard time in prison.

BornSicky

I agree, you can't "know" that you'll get the right information. Anyone being tortured will tell the interrogator what they think the interrogator wants to hear. But sometimes what they think the interrogator wants to hear, and the information needed, are the same thing. It's very easy for us to sit safely in front of our screens and debate morality.

I don't condone torture but I can see how the decision to torture can be made by people wanting to protect their homeland from terrorism, and I don't think it should be up to a supranational body to impose their 'law' on those people. That law has to come from within the country.

Protocol 4 has nothing to do with Abu Qatada - it applies to expelling people who are nationals of the relevant country. He isn't. He is here illegally. The UK Government is perfectly within their rights to require him to leave, provided that they do not breach their obligations under the Human Rights Act/ ECHR or the Convention on Refugees. It also is more about Article 3 ECHR than the Convention against Torture which kind of supports the ECHR. Fortunately the prohibition on torture and inhuman/degrading treatment is absolute, so there is never any excuse for it. Someone mentioned above that torture could be acceptable in saving the lives of many to prevent a terrorist attack.

I can understand why you could think that, but where does it stop? Would it only be to prevent terrorism? Is that any worse than murder of one person? Is murder worse than rape? Etc etc. It becomes a neverending circle. Plus torture doesn't make people truthful and honest because they are being beaten/ having body parts extracted/ being burned/ being starved. It just degrades society. It is absolutely unacceptable in all circumstances.

flatpackhamster the point is that the rights enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights are SO fundamental that they should apply to all humans regardless. The supranational body has not imposed their law on us, the UK signed up to it. We were not forced to do so. In fact, we were heavily involved in drafting it.

You may find more friends on the Daily Mail website

and I live in a non democratic country but nobody checks our lunchboxes, get over yourselves.