European court of human rights

[RichL]

Originally posted by Gurm
The sad part is that some of us felt the EU was doomed from the outset. I hate being right about stuff like that.

- Gurm

It's not dead, it's just resting.

[Schorsch]

Originally posted by Gurm
The sad part is that some of us felt the EU was doomed from the outset. I hate being right about stuff like that.

- Gurm

It's too early to tell if the EU is really doomed - at the moment it is certainly not, but it will be if it accepts new members without reforming itself first. And if every EU country ignores any rules that it doesn't like we can ditch the EU right away (I admit that most EU countries, especially the large ones, have ignored EU decisions in the past but so far these cases have been exceptions and not the rule).

Some thoughts about the current situation - correct me if I've got the facts wrong:

It was the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (and not a European court) which has decided that the anti-terrorism law is a violation of the European Convention of Human Rights. This is what the BBC wrote abut it:

"At the heart of the commission's judgment is the principle that it is unlawful to discriminate against someone on the basis of nationality.

In other words, a Briton who was suspected of terrorist involvement but against whom there was no compelling evidence capable of being tested in court, could not be imprisoned without charge.

Thus it is wrong that a foreign-born person can be.

The ruling was made by interpreting the European Convention of Human Rights.

Ironically, the government thought it had dealt with this problem by opting out, or derogating, from part of the convention. "

So it seems that in this case the rights of criminals were not upheld over the rights of the victims or future victims, but the rights of British terrorists were upheld over the rights of foreign terrorists. I think the ruling of the SIAC is no surprise if you look at it from that perspective.

And, by the way: I'll never understand how anybody can "opt out" of a human rights convention in order to fight terrorism. After all, it's our human rights that should be protected by the fight against terrorism...

Kind regards,

Georg