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Lord Neuberger slams 'slanted' portrayal of human rights
Britain's top judge warns UK will have to quit UN if it wants to send terrorism suspects to face torture
IF BRITAIN wants to deport terrorism suspects to countries that carry out torture, it will have to pull out of the United Nations as well as the European Court of Human Rights, the country's top judge has warned.
Lord Neuberger, the president of the supreme court, sounded his warning after Home Secretary Theresa May told the Mail on Sunday she would make the UK's withdrawal from the ECHR part of the Tory manifesto before the general election in 2015. May has been an outspoken critic of the court which has frustrated her efforts to deport the radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada to Jordan.
The Mail, which says the ECHR has allowed "dangerous criminals and hate preachers" to remain in the UK, applauded May's pledge. If enacted it would "leave British judges free to interpret the law without interference from the Strasbourg-based ECHR", the paper said.
But the proposal got short shrift from Lord Neuberger, who today launched what The Guardian calls a "sustained attack" on "slanted" media coverage and "one-sided portrayals" of the ECHR and the way it operates.
Neuberger, 65, who was sworn in as president of the supreme court on 1 October last year, said the UK's highest court is "not subservient", but works "in a dialogue" with judges in Strasbourg. Pulling out of the ECHR would "certainly send an unfortunate number of messages," he told The Guardian.
Neuberger conceded that "human rights excite great emotion," but said he objected to the misrepresentation of some of the ECHR's decisions. "An obvious example is attacking the [European] human rights convention because we can't send back nasty terrorists because they might be tortured. Well, even if you think we should be able to be send them back … there's a UN convention going back to 1948 which says you can't do that – which stops it on its own, unless we are going to pull out of the UN."
The judge also hit back at criticisms of the judiciary made by the Home Secretary last month when she accused judges of "subverting" British democracy and making the streets of Britain more dangerous by ignoring rules aimed at deporting more foreign criminals.
Neuberger said the minister's comments were "inappropriate, unhelpful and wrong" and told the Daily Telegraph that such public attacks risked "destabilising" the delicate balance between Parliament and the judiciary. ·
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Lord Neuberger, eminent as he is, must surely be able to recognise the clear distinctions between the functions of the Legislature (our democratically elected Members of Parliament - who, we, the electorate, put in office to represent OUR views and aspirations), the Executive (the Civil Service) and the Judiciary (simply put, the Judges); the Judiciary do NOT make the law - they are responsible for interpreting and administering the law (and those judges can, sometimes, be quite wide of the mark in terms of natural justice and common sense, when delivering "justice", it seems).
It must NOT be for the Judges to dictate to us, the wider public (the electorate) that we should tolerate terrorists, rapists, murderers, et al, in our society simply to comply with their own (the Judges') narrow interpretation of the law.
If clarification of the law (especially as it applies, or is intended to apply, to extradition of terrorists and other clearly dangerous individuals in our society), then it is incumbent upon our ELECTED representatives to clarify any relevant law, including (as it seems to be necessary) to spell out, chapter and verse, the intention behind the law - ie protection of the wider public from harm and to ensure security of the realm.
By the same token it is incumbent upon the Judiciary to take note of the democratically stated wishes and instructions of the Legislature, and - by extension - the electorate (ourselves) rather than seeking to undermine the democratic process, which underpins the British Constitution.
Neuberger IS talking about the law. May can't have it all ways and she is simply out of her league in an argument with him about the law. Being elected does not make her right and in this case she is foolish. Of course politicians can change the law - if they get the change through Parliament - but don't expect judges to completely ignore the fact that we, Britain, have actually signed not one but two international conventions which prevent the courts from doing what she would have the courts do.
Then there is the wider argument - which she must win to successfully change the law - about whether Britain ought to abandon the ECHR. Despite the often hysterical tabloid distortions I think that there are enough people in Britain rightly proud of our forward steps in human rights to ensure that May and the rest do not take us backwards for the sake of some very narrow political points.
...thank you for your comments Harlan - of course, I can see you argument - but, my point distills down to a narrow argument - i.e. - "who makes our laws?". Certainly, it is NOT for the Judiciary to draft our laws - that remains, clearly, the function and the responsibility of the Legislature (of which body, Mrs May is a prominent member and our ELECTED representative).
Whether or not we ought to withdraw from or ignore the principle of the ECHR is another argument entirely - while there are legitimately drafted laws, originating from the democratically elected element of our society (i.e. Parliament) - and I have not heard any arguments to the contrary from Europe - our Judiciary should not be questioning the very existence of those laws; to ignore the spirit of those laws is tantamount to the Judiciary cocking a snook at Parliament and, by extension, at you and me.