Live webchat with Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty, Wednesday 4th May, 12pm - 1pm

[KatieMumsnet]

Shami Chakrabarti has been director of Liberty (The National Council for Civil Liberties) since September 2003. She became heavily involved in its engagement with the 'War on Terror', and with the defence and promotion of human rights values in Parliament, the Courts and wider society.

We're delighted that Shami is our guest on Mumsnet from 12-1pm tomorrow, to answer your questions, including the right to peaceful protest, the human rights implications of the 'war on terror', privacy, the rights of vulnerable minorities and the Human Rights Act.

Sorry Shami, I have a 12 year old so find myself explaining everything Thank you. I could sit here all day and pick your brains about the HRA (travellers and Article 8 etc, this comfuses me a little.)

@justabit

Hello Shami. I've met you (several years ago) and find it very interesting how you manage to convey such certainty on so many issues given the complexity and shifting times we live in. Do you feel that the next couple of years are likely to be even more testing for civil liberties or do you feel that we will now revisit the decisions that we have taken in the past ten years?

I suspect the next couple of years are going to be justabit as testing Justabit Its even harder to get an unjust law repealed than it is to prevent it passing in the first place. I am particularly worried about political attacks on our independent judiciary and Human Rights framework.

@Artichokes

Hi Shami, what will you be voting in the AV referendum and why?

This isn't Liberty's area or expertise Artichokes so I'd better keep my big mouth shut on this one!

Hi Shami

Not sure if this is something you're focused on, but have you been following the draft libel legislation, particularly the issues around third-party hosting of comments?

Hello again Shami - thanks for the reply about complaints against the police going to the IPCC, but what I really wanted to know was a bit about the nuts and bolts of how the process goes (eg: is the complainant visited at home, or must they go to a central point and attest, or is everything done by correspondence? - really, I just would be interested to know how, typically, a person who makes a complaint against the police is kept informed about how it's being dealt with. Thanks.

Thanks Shami.

Could I ask a follow-up; do you feel that the general populace has sufficient engagement with the issues that you are routinely tackling, and, if not, what could be done to stimulate more interest and involvement e.g. more analysis and fewer soundbites from the media, more political content or debating tuition in the national education syllabus etc?

@StarBellySneetch

Hello Shami - really brill to have you on.

Christina Od ious one recently wrote in the Tel that the coalition has put you out of a job with their Freedom Bill . So, have you been twiddling your thumbs recently, as she suggests?

Thanks Starbellysneetch. Great to be here and no- I am not exactly out of a job under the new regime. Punishment without trial continues even though both Coalition parties campaigned against it in opposition. There's a Bill going through Parliament that would put independent policing under the direct control of new elected police chiefs and there are too many powerful voices in Government and the media who want to scrap the Human Rights Act!

Been trying to find out which laws cover the safety of service famillies house's (accommadation) Surely we have rights even as licencee's rather than tennents yet no organisation I contact will offer advice. Electrical & Gas regulations are not followed correctly & then brushed under the carpet by offers to put it right & vouchers.Some people are living in houses with ceilings missing & mould growing on wall, horrendus damp. But no one seems to care, can you point me in the right direction.

Noooo. Nobody keeps their big mouths shut around here. Go on, tell us (not Liberty's view but your own view as an informed and intelligent womaen).

Thanks to Pram1intheHall and Awaywego1 for points about Liberty legal observers at the TUC demo on 26 March. Liberty was formed in 1934 in response to heavy-handed policing of hunger-marchers so protecting peaceful protest is particularly close to our hearts. I know that some people in the blogosphere have criticised us for a) being impartial observers of the TUC demo rather than prejudging the police and b) not being inside Fortnum and Mason for the UK UNCUT protests. At Liberty we have often "taken part" in demonstrations (eg against ID cards and punishment without trial). But we don't see how you can be an independent observer of anything (eg an election or a demonstration) if you are a protagonist in it.

When the TUC and Police approached us about observing on 26 March, we took the view (supported by very many peaceful protesters) that our presence would give people confidence. We are still of that view. As for the unscheduled Fortnums' protest- we had no idea that it was going to happen so we couldn't place observers there. They were stationed only along the pre-planned TUC route that the organisers told us about in advance. You could argue that we should have run off in any direction in which any group of people moved but we didn't think that this would be a safe or sensible way to deploy our legal volunteers.

@bopbop

Been trying to find out which laws cover the safety of service famillies house's (accommadation) Surely we have rights even as licencee's rather than tennents yet no organisation I contact will offer advice. Electrical & Gas regulations are not followed correctly & then brushed under the carpet by offers to put it right & vouchers.Some people are living in houses with ceilings missing & mould growing on wall, horrendus damp. But no one seems to care, can you point me in the right direction.

I can point you in the right direction bophop. If you go to Liberty's website at www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk you will find details of our legal advice line/ email service. Then phone up or email in with your particular case and we'll see what we can advise. Be sure to mention that we met on mumsnet and that I asked you to get in touch.

Hi all,
Shami's going to stay on for a bit longer as her cab isn't due for a bit so do keep asking away.

Hi Shami

Great chat so far - are you still around? If so, any chance you could answer my question?

My heart often agress with what you say, but not always my head. As a politician responsible for the safety of the people of this country, do you think you'd have to compromise. Can some measures (nb not torture, which the UK govt. have never sought to use) be justified if it prevents a future tube bombing?

With real responsibility do you think compromise of principles is always (regrettably) inevitable?

do you think that due to expensive energy costs as fossil fuels become harder to obtain, there will be more oppression of the people? or will we see more revolutions?

Thanks for your response Shami-i appreciate it would have been difficult to have the observers everywhere safely in london. However i think that having them on the demo atall is a great step forward-so thanks to liberty for that :)

A quick question about the use of children?s finger prints in schools?my mother is very anti any intrusion (she won?t fly as she won?t want her bags checked) and feels that the use of finger prints is the thin end of a scary wedge and could be open to abuse.

What are your thoughts? I am undecided myself?.

@MrsOliverQueen

Hi Shami,

A light hearted question (I am interested in your answers re Bin Laden too)?have two small children waiting to be entertained for the day so must be quick?

I have often wondered over the years, are you related to the journalist Reeta Chakrabarti? I?ve seen both of you over the years on the news?

Will be reading your answers later on with interest????..thank you

Well...MrsOliverQueen.The wonderful Reeta is not my sister but I think that I do better out of this urban myth than she does. I get to bask in the reflected glory of a first-rate non-partisan BBC journalist and she probably gets some of my hate-mail.

Pram1nTheHall's qu re UK UNCUT march, and Shami's answer to it, are v interesting.

Shami, there is always going to be a potential conflict of interest between Liberty taking a position as 'legal observers' (passive) and their duty to protect the right to peaceful protest (active) - is there an argument that you should ditch the former, or encourage a neutral coalition of interested groups to fulfil that function.

Hi Shami - in awe at your articulacy .
Forgive me as I ought to know this , but has Liberty done any work to date around the arguments for legally forcing servers to not to host the incitement to violence against peaceful campaigners that is carried on by Redwatch ? The Commons seems determined not to act .

Sorry for garbled post

@MrsOliverQueen

A quick question about the use of children?s finger prints in schools?my mother is very anti any intrusion (she won?t fly as she won?t want her bags checked) and feels that the use of finger prints is the thin end of a scary wedge and could be open to abuse.

What are your thoughts? I am undecided myself?.

I don't like kiddyprinting, particularly when it is done without parental consent. At Liberty we heard of one primary school that told the children "we are playing detectives today...don't tell your parents.." in order to get hold of their fingerprints without any hassle. I don't see why less intrusive security or identity systems can't be used in schools and I do worry about how the data could be compromised. I also hate the idea of small children being conditioned to accept the kind of treatment normally reserved for criminal suspects as if its completely normal. There is a real issue about young people's privacy and dignity in this country. How are we going to teach kids to respect themselves and other people (eg on the internet) if we don't show a little respect in return. Do you know that I once debated a headteacher on the radio who had installed CCTV cameras in the bathrooms at his school.

Darn, I really wanted to be here for this one! But a good discussion anyway, well done MN.

I agree with your disquiet over fingerprinting of school children. It doesn't sit well with me.

Do you think that systems like Facebook, that actively encourage its users to put in huge amounts of personal information that is then sold to marketing companies, are similarly creating a feeling among young people that their personal information doesn't need to be protected and that they have no right to privacy?

Be quick edam, if you've got a question - Shami's still here.

@Crumblemum

Hi Shami

Great chat so far - are you still around? If so, any chance you could answer my question?

My heart often agress with what you say, but not always my head. As a politician responsible for the safety of the people of this country, do you think you'd have to compromise. Can some measures (nb not torture, which the UK govt. have never sought to use) be justified if it prevents a future tube bombing?

With real responsibility do you think compromise of principles is always (regrettably) inevitable?

Still here Crumblemum. I think that there is plenty of room for debate and compromise within the human rights framework without giving up on this precious system of democratic values. So many of the questions we've been discussing today involve an assessment of different rights and interests (eg the right to life of a potential victim v the right to privacy of a potential offender). The Human Rights Act isn't a computer programme that gives us perfect answers to all of these questions but it does give us a framework to guide us in the constant balancing act.

@ilovesprouts

hi shami ,what ae you fav biscuits and do you dunk

Hi ilovesprouts. I love white chocolate fingers