Neuberger expressed in no uncertain terms his opposition to
two major planks of government strategy, both of which have the enthusiastic
backing of senior Labour former ministers.
He described as “slanted” attitudes towards the European
Court of Human Rights, saying that those who want to send “nasty terrorists”
back to countries where they may be tortured were clearly in breach of the UN
Human Rights convention of 1948.
Neuberger added that “attacking judges” in the way that Home
Secretary Theresa May has done repeatedly in relation to recent immigration
cases, was “unfortunate” and “not a sensible way to proceed”.
May’s department is stinging from last week’s rebuff by High
Court Mr Justice Wilkie who has rejected Home Office efforts to force through
the deportation of failed Tamil asylum seekers.
Teaming up with May in opposition to human rights is Justice
Secretary Chris Grayling. He has made it clear he wants any future Conservative
government to repeal the Human Rights Act and withdraw from the European Court
of Human Rights.
Neuberger also criticised the severe restriction of legal
aid from April when £350 billion of cuts come into force, warning that this
would undermine the rule of law, because “people will feel like the government
isn’t giving them access to justice in all sorts of cases”.
The judge’s concerns,
however moderately crafted, acquire a more frightening aspect if they are taken
together with the passage
through parliament of the Justice and Security Bill.
Last night MPs voted against “safeguards” to curb the use of
secret courts proposed in the Bill. Labour’s amendments were intended to make
it more palatable to its numerous critics. But with the unstinting help of
former Labour ministers David Blunkett, Jack Straw and Hazel Blears, the
amendments failed by 71 and 73 votes, even though seven Lib Dems rebelled.
This gives minister Kenneth Clarke carte blanche to continue
railroading his Bill through parliament. Clarke has made no secret that his
enthusiasm for secret courts is totally on behalf of “our security services”.
A strange bedfellow in the campaign for rights, the Daily Mail, published an open letter
signed by 704 legal figures, including 38 leading QCs, which warned that the
plans for secret courts were “dangerous and unnecessary”. One legal expert even
suggested that its provisions for Closed Material Procedures (CMPS) were
intended to cover up UK
“complicity in rendition and torture”.
The human rights charity Reprieve has called for complete
opposition to secret courts, saying: “The right to hear and challenge the
evidence used against you in court has been established in Britain for
centuries. Yet plans for secret courts would sweep this away...” Its head,
Clare Agar, has rightly said that last night was “a dark night for British
justice”.
The suggestion by The
Guardian’s editorial today that undermining human rights is a “Tory”
strategy is of course ludicrous. New Labour’s David Blunkett was just as, if
not more gung-ho in attacking human rights legislation as the current
administration.
Labour introduced detention without trial and thwarted in
its attempt to raise the time people could be held under anti-terror laws to 90 days. And let’s not forget the previous government’s plans for ID cards.
Behind the concerns raised by Britain ’s most senior judges,
lawyers and human rights defenders lie the ever-deepening resentment and
suffering caused by austerity measures and the subsequent alienation of people
from the state.
The urgent need to defend ancient legal rights as
proposed in the campaign for an Agreement
of the People for the 21st century could not be clearer. For
that to happen, we definitely should create a new democratic, political system in
place of the increasingly authoritarian one bearing down on ordinary people.
Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary
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