| Abu Qatada and human rights |
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November 2009 This is one essay where I do not know, as I begin to write, what my conclusion will be. But, to start with, let's be honest - Abu Qatada is not someone I would invite into my home. He is an extremist Moslem ‘cleric' who has said some hideous things. If anyone converts from being a Muslim to some other religion then he is in favour of that person's murder, and also that of the rest of his family. He has advocated the killing of Jews and attacks on Americans. His disciples have included some very nasty Muslim extremists. Mr Justice Colins, having seen all the evidence against him, open and secret, said of him that he was ‘a truly dangerous individual'. He came here on a false passport in 1993 and, ironically, was granted asylum on the ground that he would be subject to religious persecution if returned to his home country of Jordan. Irony is clearly written over everything in this case: he is using Human Rights legislation to resist being returned to Jordan despite his hatred of everything for which Human Rights stand. And yet, he has now been awarded compensation by the European Court of Human Rights* (‘ECHR') of £2,500 (although not the £170,000 claimed) because he was detained for a while under laws which allowed indefinite detention of foreigners who appeared to be a grave threat to national security. The basis of the finding was not that he was not a threat to national security but that his detention was discriminatory, as the House of Lords had already found. This was because the law only applied to foreigners and not to UK nationals as well. The law was therefore changed, and now, in a modified form (‘Control Orders' - a form of house arrest), it applies to everyone equally. Which is nice. At almost the same time, the House of Lords has decided** that this man can be returned to his country of origin, Jordan, where he has already been convicted in absentia of terrorism. He will be tried again, but it is said that some of the evidence on which the original conviction was founded was obtained by torture of the witnesses. And that evidence will be used again. This is what the controversy has been about. Torture is absolutely prohibited by all human rights conventions. But the House of Lords has decided that the question of using evidence allegedly obtained by torture is not the deciding factor. The question is whether there is "a real risk that Qatada's trial in Jordan would be flagrantly unfair in character, course or consequences". In the light of the memorandum of understanding signed between the UK and the Jordanian governments as to how Qatada would be dealt with upon his return, they held there was no real likelihood of such risk. The Lords said that the Human Rights convention, as previously interpreted by the ECHR itself, did not require a trial process of the standard which would be required for someone in the countries which had signed the convention - only that it should not be flagrantly unfair. The use of evidence allegedly obtained by torture (and there is after all no actual proof that it was so obtained) was only therefore one consideration amongst many. So then, we can send someone back to his country of origin where he would face a trial process which we in Europe would regard as unacceptable, but which nonetheless is not likely to be flagrantly unfair. Which does seem to be just a little discriminatory. One of the problem with human rights is that we know the sort of gross breaches of human rights which we think should never be allowed. We can put names to them - Hitler, Pol Pot etc. But when we try to write down what we mean in a convention we inevitably fail to allow for the unknowable complexities of human life in a very different future. This is part of the reason why we now have so much difficulty in finding a way to deal with someone who is flagrantly evil and is a danger to national security. The other difficulty is that the simple solution of trying him here for any crimes he has committed here has been ruled out. Why? Because in the opinion of MI5 and the government the trial process would apparently reveal too much about the technology used to obtain the information required to produce a conviction. Although it seems that this disclosure it is not a problem for other countries in Europe. Quite clearly, the House of Lords has
tried to find a way to deport someone that no-one
wants here, without at the same time offending the
principles of the Human Rights Act. Personally,
I am not convinced that they have or that the ECHR
will think that they have succeeded. What is
really needed, though is a change in policy to allow
evidence of crimes committed here to be prosecuted
here, despite the misgivings of MI5. It would
cause far less damage to the fabric of our human
rights than that which we have seen arise from their
attempts to detain without the need to prosecute for
actual crimes. And human rights are important to
us as well as to Mr Qatada. Paul Buckingham *Click here for link to summary of ECHR judgement
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