Human Rights and responsibilities
Posted by Andrew Adams on December 10, 2008
Filed Under Human rights, Politics, Society |
Today sees the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and it’s good to see that Justice Secretary Jack Straw is commemorating the event by, er, planning to water down our own human rights laws. In an interview with the Daily Mail he has vented his frustration with the Human Rights Act
The Justice Secretary’s admission that he is ‘frustrated’ by the way the Act has sometimes been interpreted by the courts alarmed campaigners.
He told the Mail there were genuine public concerns about the way it is being exploited by criminals and extremists to hide from the law. [...]
The Justice Secretary sympathises with those who complain that the act has become used by prisoners to avoid punishment or by Islamic extremists to avoid deportation.
He tells the Mail that he wants to ‘rebalance’ the rights set out in the Human Rights Act by adding explicit ‘responsibilities’, specifically to obey the law and to be loyal to the country. […]
He said: ‘I fully understand that Mail readers have concerns about the Human Rights Act. There is a sense that it’s a villains charter or that it stops terrorists being deported or criminals being properly given publicity. I am greatly frustrated by this, not by the concerns, but by some very few judgments that have thrown up these problems.’
There are three main planks to his argument. Firstly he buys in to the Mail’s “villain’s charter” line by complaining that the act is often used by criminals. Well that’s the thing about human rights - we possess them by virtue of being human, not by being law-abiding and they apply to the worst of us as well as the best. In fact an essential part of any charter or bill of rights is how we are treated when suspected of a crime (guilty or not) and if we are subsequently convicted. Furthermore, given the squalid state of our prison system it is hardly surprising that the government is found to be in breach of the HRA in the way some prisoners are treated. Of course there may be individual rulings which seem perverse (although it’s important to separate these from myths such as rioting prisoners being given KFC meals because of the HRA) but I see no evidence that there is any widespread abuse of the HRA which would require it to be amended.
Secondly he bemoans the government’s inability to deport Islamic extremists, which is probably the area which causes most controversy. The most notorious case of course is Abu Qatada, whose extradition to Jordan was blocked on the basis that he would not receive a fair trial. Firstly I should point out that this matter is not settled because the Law Lords will give a final ruling this month, but the notion that we should only extradite people if they will receive a fair trial (and according to Amnesty Jordan has a record of torturing and otherwise mistreating prisoners) seems perfectly proper to me and if we accept this principle then it must apply to everyone.
The issue more commonly arises when the government wants to deport those whom it considers extremists and who have no right to remain in the country, but cannot because of a likelihood they will be tortured in the countries to which they are sent. But if we are to uphold the principle of an absolute prohibition of torture I don’t see what alternative we have and by refusing to send people back to these countries we are making a stand and publicly stating that the methods they use are unacceptable. As for “memoranda of understanding” that the people concerned will not be tortured, well the notion that these would be worth the paper they are written on is laughable.
Finally, Straw claims that he wants to ”’rebalance’ the rights set out in the Human Rights Act by adding explicit ‘responsibilities’, specifically to obey the law and to be loyal to the country.” I have a problem with this on a number of levels. First of all the specifics he mentions are nonsense; there are already penalties for those who do not obey the law, this hardly needs to be pointed out, and I’m not sure that I have any particular duty to be loyal to my country – to my family, to my friends yes, to my employer even to an extent, but although some might see loyalty to one’s country as a virtue I don’t see it as something they have a right to demand.
I do believe that as people living in a complex society we do have some kinds of responsibilities towards each other and society in general, but the point of the HRA is that it is enforceable in law – even if you could codify the kinds of behaviour which make us responsible citizens (but are not subject to the law already) how is the government going to enforce them, by making our rights stated in the HRA conditional on them? But human rights are not conditional – as stated above we possess them merely by virtue of being human. If you attach conditions then they cease to become rights at all, so the government would either be tearing up the ECHR or be left with a list of nice sounding but unenforceable platitudes.
In fact the HRA needs tightening, not watering down. It hasn’t prevented control orders, restrictions on the right to protest and other attacks on civil liberties by New Labour (although the decision on the DNA database was a result). It wouldn’t have prevented 42 days’ detention. Given the occasion it would have been nice to see a more noble response from the government – a strong statement on the importance of human rights and a promise to uphold and strengthen the HRA. But we know by now that this is too much to hope for.
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