The European Court of Human Rights have shafted us again

I have to admit that although the subject matter of the ruling disgusts me, the judgement is 100% correct.

What puzzles me more is why its' taken to get to the EHCR to find this out? Surely its pretty simple junior-lawyer stuff to work out that we couldn't possibly justify deporting him to face trial where he'll be convicted based on torture-gained evidence?
(i.e. lies)

And surely, he can only be labelled a terrorist if convicted of terrorism.... which obviously seeing as we don't have enough evidence to convict on, he clearly isn't a terrorist.

Where's the black-bag operations when you need them eh? ;)
 
Castiel said:
Can you expect protections under a set of rights that you yourself deny to others, either by deed or incitement to deed?
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That is the good question.

I think the answer is yes, though there are plenty of situations where that sort of ruling does not sit easy, so I would be open to a debate on how things can be changed.
 
Freakbro said:
I do agree that with rights come responsibilities, and he has lost a lot of his rights currently, as he is under house arrest. But irrespective of the crimes he is accused of, we should not dismiss our own core values of human rights, fair trials and such .
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Are we not in danger of compromising our own core values and principles by the way we deny him liberty without trial or charge?

And at which point do the rights of the individual, especially one whose stated aims are to remove those rights from others, outweight the collective rights and more importantly the States responsibility to protect the rights of the public as a whole.....

Do the rights of an individual to what is effectively asylum outweigh the rights of the public in the country to which he applies for such rights?

Whose rights and whose responsibilities take precedence?

Freakbro said:
Edit :

I see you added to your post

If cases like this allowed us to explore these ideas in international law, then that would be a positive outcome.
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I thought my post needed clarifying somewhat....
 
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[FnG]magnolia;21059874 said:
Why didn't you post this in Speakers Corner so you could at least have a chance of debate? Are you looking for debate or just agreement?
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Who says we can't have a debate in GD?.......:p
 
groen said:
When I was in Doha recently for a few weeks, the local paper had a page full of mug shots of deportees. The Arabs don't mess around with paper work and feel good liberal non sense. You cross the line, you are gone. Zero tolerance.
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Because we should obviously aspire to hold the same views as them.

Oh wa....
 
Castiel said:
Can you expect protections under a set of rights that you yourself deny to others, either by deed or incitement to deed?
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Of course, those right are universal, again that creates a loop hole which can be easily exploited.

As a prosecutor I just have to tell the judge that you are against the rights upheld by the country, hence we can do whatever we want for you. There are not different kinds of human beings.
 
In my opinion torture should be illegal. If there is a pending terrorist attack about to happen and a military/police individual has a prisoner who has information on it, if he chooses to do "enhanced interrogation techniques" that amounts to torture then he should face charges for this, in light of the pending situation it would reasonable to be lenient on the military personal in such an instance. But by no means should torture be accepted under the law, for reason i don't think i need to go over. Ie if someone wants to go rogue and pull a jack bauer on a prisoner to save lives of countless other people then i could understand it, but he should have to explain his actions afterwards and possible face reprimand.

As for this case i think the British government should not need to require a reason if they want to deport non British citizen. They made the mistake of trying to justify the deportation with evidence obtain from torture. They should have just put him on a plane and said shut up.
 
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hola_adios said:
Of course, those right are universal, again that creates a loop hole which can be easily exploited.

As a prosecutor I just have to tell the judge that you are against the rights upheld by the country, hence we can do whatever we want for you. There are not different kinds of human beings.
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No one is suggesting there are different kinds of human beings.....only the concept that how far you claim protection by the rights of a society should be dependent upon the extent the individual respects those rights.....we suspend peoples rights for the greater good all the time, the right of liberty is denied to Abu Qatada now, so why are other rights to be treated differently...

Jordan has given assurances that he will not be subject to torture....and is it not up to a court in Jordan (where Abu Qatada is a citizen) to decide what is fair according to their principles.....this is the issue I am trying to discuss, where does a States responsiblity lie.....

Does the State protect the rights of a foreign national if doing so compromises the rights of the citizens to which the State has a greater responsibitity?

I think it is an important question, and one that has not been considered or answered adequately....while I agree with the broad concept of the ECHR, it's application is sometimes flawed and can be construed to defending the rights of one to the detriment of the rights of another....
 
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Castiel said:
Jordan has given assurances that he will not be subject to torture....and is it not up to a court in Jordan (where Abu Qatada is a citizen) to decide what is fair according to their principles.....this is the issue I am trying to discuss, where does a States responsiblity lie.....
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I think state responsibility should still lie within the framework of international law, as it does.

So a State does not have carte blanche in its actions based on its own principles, else we could not condemn the Taliban, the Burmese, North Korea et al.

Does the State protect the rights of a foreign national if doing so compromises the rights of the citizens to which the State has a greater responsibitity?
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Again, the balance has to be struck within State responsibility for the protection of it's citizens and the International law of the fundemental human rights.

At the minute that balance does seems ok. He is under house arrest, thus protecting the states citizens but at the same time removing some his his rights - ie: detention without trial (but not unending without review) but on the other hand he is not being handed over to somewhere where an illegal act has occured in order to convict him.
 
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Castiel said:
No one is suggesting there are different kinds of human beings.....only the concept that how far you claim protection by the rights of a society should be dependent upon the extent the individual respects those rights.....we suspend peoples rights for the greater good all the time, the right of liberty is denied to Abu Qatada now, so why are other rights to be treated differently...

Jordan has given assurances that he will not be subject to torture....and is it not up to a court in Jordan (where Abu Qatada is a citizen) to decide what is fair according to their principles.....this is the issue I am trying to discuss, where does a States responsiblity lie.....

Does the State protect the rights of a foreign national if doing so compromises the rights of the citizens to which the State has a greater responsibitity?

I think it is an important question, and one that has not been considered or answered adequately....while I agree with the broad concept of the ECHR, it's application is sometimes flawed and can be construed to defending the rights of one to the detriment of the rights of another....
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The state takes away the right to Liberty, because he has committed a crime, going from there and trying to take away what should be universal rights, is quite a quantitative leap.

I cannot see the rights of foreign nationals put at risk here. If the State chooses to defend the its citizens by condoning torture, then such a State has already failed on the defence.

ECHR is a much more important institution than most people think, and the attacks from certain media are just an attack on one of the triumphs of the 20th century. Such agreements between nations make the world a much better place. Does it need reform? Of course, there is no perfect system. Will the UK achieve anything by just no abiding by it? Nothing at all.
 
This court case if viewed in the wider context is actually a MASSIVE VICTORY FOR THE UK the European Court of Human Rights has put it's weight behind our memorandums of understanding meaning that as long as we can get a country to agree in writing not to torture deported individuals the court will not stand in our way, this has potentially massive benefits for deportation cases and all so opens up a simple solution to the current issue we just need to convince Jordan to sign a memorandum stating they will not use evidence obtained under torture against him. We should be able to purchase this agreement with some appropriately targeted forign aid.
 
hola_adios said:
The state takes away the right to Liberty, because he has committed a crime, going from there and trying to take away what should be universal rights, is quite a quantitative leap.

I cannot see the rights of foreign nationals put at risk here. If the State chooses to defend the its citizens by condoning torture, then such a State has already failed on the defence.

ECHR is a much more important institution than most people think, and the attacks from certain media are just an attack on one of the triumphs of the 20th century. Such agreements between nations make the world a much better place. Does it need reform? Of course, there is no perfect system. Will the UK achieve anything by just no abiding by it? Nothing at all.
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Indeed.

We already have a balance on rights to protect the people, detention being the key one.

It's already a well judged give & taken between protecting the rights of the population (by detaining him) & protecting the rights of the individual & our stance of torture.

It's just another case of the sensationalist media trying to portray the human rights act as something against the people - but they forget it protects the population (just people don't like the fact it includes the people we hate/dislike).
 
Freakbro said:
I think state responsibility should still lie within the framework of international law, as it does.

So a State does not have carte blanche in its actions based on its own principles, else we could not condemn the Taliban, the Burmese, North Korea et al.
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I am not suggesting carte blanche, only that the rights of the individual are tempered by the rights of the society in which the individual claims protection.....

Should the burden be on the British State to ensure that a foreign nationals home country comply with British standards of juris in it's dealings with it's own citizens...

Also he is effectively claiming asylum status, and there is a stipulation in the Refugee Convention that any asylum claimant cannot claim such if there are reasonable grounds that the individual claiming asylum can be considered a danger to the security to the country in which he is.

Basically if you invite someone into your country to protect them, only for them to threaten the security and safety of that country...does that contry not retain the right to ask them to leave......

As I said, with rights come responsibities...and at which point does the rights of the individual outweigh their responsibilites toward the society in which they seek protection?

This is the problem when you claim human rights are immutable....responsibility of action falls to the wayside and legal systems then fail to provide the rights to the very people they are designed to protect.
 
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