Michael White Talks Rubbish
Here's a bit of light relief - 'Sir' Michael White, Blair apologist by appointment, springing loyally to the defence of the hopeless Home Office. Time for a good fisking:
Subtext - it's all those awful judges fault. I was unaware that conventions could applaud too, which is the first indication that Mike may have knocked this one out in a hurry. There will be more. As for letting them out of Belmarsh, we're unaware that any of these people were like anyone who was ever in Belmarsh (the British one certainly wasn't, since the detention regime didn't apply to British citizens, which is why it was struck down as unfair). You don't have to be in jail to be given a control order, as far as I know. What he's actually euphemising here is his received opinion that the ruling that detaining people indefinitely without trial was illegal (which is blatantly obvious) was wrong. Who introduced the illegal legislation? Oh, New Labour. Strike 1.
The monitoring company isn't the police, it will be a private security outfit. See what I meant about a hurry? Actually, only two had to ring the company, all three had to attend a police station every day. This isn't exactly maximum security, of course and begs the question what the point was.
Or not, in the case of any British citizens suspected, since there was never any power to hold them in Belmarsh without trial (he keeps forgetting to mention that). In any case, since the alleged suspects apparently wanted to leave the country at the earliest opporunity, that would seem to tie in nicely with the views of the deportation lobby. The Tories are making the point about British citizens in Parliament, I'm glad to say - Reid responded by not answering the question, merely resorting to bluster. Fine way to built a consensus, John.
Alarm bells start ringing here - the ECHR isn't 'European law', it's British law and has been for a good long time. We'll return to this.
'Found', not 'ruled'. Nice distinction, but a finding in law isn't a ruling, it's an objective judgement. Mike is giving the impression that the judges are being wilful, not the truth that they're interpreting the law of the land.
The brought in laws that a five-year-old could see were illegal, they were found unlawful, they tried again, they're slightly less unlawful. Apparently putting illegal legislation on the statute book isn't embarrassing.
Oops - it's not the EU, it's the Council of Europe that administers the ECHR (which of course is explicity designed to be a flexible document). Silly mistake for such a high-profile journalist - it's almost as if he doesn't know what he's talking about. He means 'deported', too. Bad article, done in a hurry without checking.
Oops - it's not the EU, it's
Oops - it's not the EU, it's the Council of Europe that administers the ECHR (which of course is explicity designed to be a flexible document).
Below is ARTICLE 60 from the ECHR this allows a High Contracting Party (Government) to apply this legislation flexibly.
Nothing in this Convention shall be construed as limiting or derogating from any of the human rights and fundamental freedoms which may be ensured under the laws of any High Contracting Party or under any other agreement to which it is a Party.
This means that the ECHR does not apply to cases where the government does not want to abide by it. This includes cases which are obviously a breach of a citizens Human Rights that the government has been responsible for, such as civil cases, where the government is the defendant, and they do not want to lose. This is the reason for the government citing their entrapment by the rules of the ECHR in cases such as these possible terrorists. In criminal cases the defendant always has the right to a fair trial, which is not the case in civil proceedings
I have had dealings with the ECofHR in a civil case against a government and they allow blatant court RIGGING in National Courts if so required. This included the fact that the plaintiff was set-up and denied the right to speak in court, and being saddled with a lawyer at the last minute, who refused to speak. If the ECofHR considers this was not a breach of a persons Human Rights, you can see that they are in the pocket of National government as required.
White is not a journalist -
White is not a journalist - probably never has been. In recent years he's made his living by being a 'personality' - i.e. a borderline comedian. One really can not take anything he utters as being verifiable fact. It's not even sensible opinion. Like so much of the stuff emanating from the Guardian these days it's really very poor quality work.
I suspect that the reason for the slapdash mistakes is that White was rushing to his next TV 'appearance'. Still, what does he care? There's always another opportunity to top up the bank balance, and that's what it's really all about.
"Michael White Talks
"Michael White Talks Rubbish"
That's a "dog bites man" headline if ever I saw one! Would surely be newsworthy if he did otherwise!!
Would surely be newsworthy
Hence the light relief - if one requires to let of steam, examining Kettle or White's latest is usually good sport, if fairly trivial. Think of it as keeping the weeds down.
doubleplusungood - This is an often overlooked aspect of the whole ECHR - it's not a terrorist's charter by any reading, as it's still open to a good deal of criticism as being too flexible and too mindful of some aspects of state power around controlling their populations (the BDSM case(s) prove that it's not strong enough to defend people's right to do what they want with their own bodies, for instance, plus Russia has managed to sign up). It's better than nothing though, and it's very weakness means that if a Government still repeatedly falls foul of it, they're definitely up to no good. The flexibility, however, is deliberate and designed to avoid situations found in the US, say, with the Second Amendment being mostly irrelevant in its original purpose - the ECHR is designed to be mutable (this may result in us, the Russians and the Turks fighting for the right to do unpleasant things to people we don't like, and the rest of the CoE refusing to let us).
I can't find an article 60, though, only up to 59 on echr.info. Article 6 is the one that matters for trials, and most of its provisions indeed apply to criminal rather than civil courts (although Section 1 applies to both, that doesn't include the right to a fair trial in the sense of adequate time and preparation etc., which is Section 3). Incidentally, Section 1 also provides for excluding judgements from the press, which is why SIAC and the Keogh/O'Connor case can legally operate secretly and also enables the courts that impose control orders, extended detention without charge and a lot of other things Mr. Reid is quite keen on.
So we have a situation of
So we have a situation of the West exporting Democracy to other less fortunate parts of the world. We are always being told of the fledgling Democracy that Messrs. Bush & Blair have started in Iraq & Afghanistan.
How the hell does anyone export something they do not possess in the first instance?
Turning it round, would you
Turning it round, would you buy a car off someone who disliked the one he had so much that he trashed it?