Fwd: [rdwg] New Labour backs ConDem attack on rights

[Mark Barrett]

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*Dark days for rights as attacks gather pace*

A massive attack against deeply enshrined rights is gathering pace and the
alarm bells are ringing in unlikely quarters. Supreme Court president Lord
Neuberger has used his first-ever interview to warn of the Coalition
government’s attitude to the rule of law and thereby reveal the growing
rift deep within the British state. He 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<http://www.aworldtowin.net/blog/tories-have-human-rights-act-in-sights.html>
 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 702 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 was 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 anAgreement of the People for the 21st
century<http://www.agreementofthepeople.org/>
 could not be clearer. For that to happen, we need to create a new
democratic, political system in place of the increasingly authoritarian one
bearing down on ordinary people.

A World to Win blog by Corinna Lotz

http://www.aworldtowin.net/blog/dark-days-for-rights-as-attacks-gather.html


http://occupylondon.org.uk/
http://www.peoplesassemblies.org
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