'Human Rights' not righted

By Arthur St Hugh

The Prime Minister has spoken on, but not spoken out against, the European Court of Human Rights.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is an illegitimate supranational entity which presumes to pass judgements upon states for failing to uphold the internationalist doctrine of ‘human rights’. These ‘rights’ are value judgements derived from western liberalism and should not be confused with right as understood in law. These value judgements have become an ideology and a bureaucracy has grown to enforce them upon everyone. Submission to this ‘court’ is a gross infringement of the sovereignty of our state, but sovereignty is a right this court does not recognise.

Chairmanship of the Court has passed to Britain and so inevitably Britain has chosen someone of non-British ancestry, Nicolas Bratza, to fill the Presidency of it. Bratza has recently denounced British ministers for something called ‘xenophobia’ , which presumably can be taken to mean ‘non-compliance’ and must therefore be a good thing.

Cameron wants the Court reformed, not abolished as any patriot would. He wants it to continue its work of interfering in the rights of nations. He proclaims that “more than ever, we need a Court” and, rather chillingly, that it must be “ruthlessly focussed on defending human freedom and dignity, respected across the continent and the world”. For the Conservatives the problem is not the very existence of a “ruthlessly focussed” Court but that it has a backlog of cases to deal with. As everyone knows, if you create a bureaucracy it will create ‘work’ for itself to maintain its existence. It seems incredible that at the same time the Coalition government is cutting local government in the UK it is failing to promote the same degree of ‘efficiency’ in entities such as the ECHR.

The Prime Minister notes that some of the cases passed to the Court are trivial and should not have been submitted. But when you invent a court higher than existing ones, then people naturally will turn to it. More worryingly Cameron notes that the Court has taken upon itself to act as an immigration tribunal, and to protect terrorists and to seek votes for prisoners – in other words it has now moved from supposedly protecting the rights of citizens to increasingly acting against the rights of those citizens. However, rather than preserving the rights of Britons by withdrawing from the ECHR Cameron feels instead that the actions of the Court are undermining people’s support for the ECHR – though the electorate has never been asked whether or not it wishes to support the ECHR of course, the British electorate seemingly has no rights on such a matter. Cameron demands that the Court “should hold us all to account”; one can only hope that the electorate holds the ConDem government to account for failing to withdraw from the ECHR.

Appallingly, Cameron boasts of Westminster’s support for the overthrow of governments in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and currently Syria, and it can be inferred also that the same is intended for Iran. The promotion of “fundamental human rights” or the ‘Europeanisation’ of the Middle East? Indeed, Cameron gives the game away by confessing that “a commitment to human rights” is “strategically right”. With the effrontery that only a true liberal can master he preaches from on high that “We are not and never will be a country that walks on by while human rights are trampled into the dust.” This is the same country that in the twentieth century did not just walk by but run by while the rights of our compatriots were trampled on in Ireland, Rhodesia and South Africa, and has done nothing since to remedy matters. And the UK is more than happy for the rights of the Palestinians to be as dusty as those bits of their country which have been left to them.

Apparently people in Belarus are “being thrown into prison for their political beliefs. Dissidents’ voices are being silenced and their rights are being crushed.” What was not pointed out is that Britain under the EU is heading the same way, and the ECHR is not only doing nothing to prevent that but is a fundamental part of the culture of repression. Dissidents in Britain are silenced as ‘racists’ or in Bratza’s word as ‘xenophobes’. Witness the treatment meted out to young mother, Emma West. Clearly Emma West is not Vaclav Havel, but then most of those who spoke out of turn under communism and were punished were not Vaclav Havels.

Cameron trots out a distorted view of history to justify Britain’s unnatural submission to the ECHR. Contrary to historical fact Cameron believes that ‘human rights’ have a long history. Magna Carta, the Petition of Right and the Bill of Rights are taken out of context as he parades them as forerunners of ‘human rights’ – but then again, as they arose out of rebellions against the sovereign he may well have a point. He engages in the delightful bourgeois notion that the liberal values of ‘human rights’ have “animated the British people for centuries” – who can doubt that the serfs of mediaeval England wished everyday that their labour would be overtaxed so that the money could be lavished overseas or that every English yeoman went to his grave hoping that foreigners would come and despoil his country and be protected in law whilst doing so!

Cameron meekly begs for “consensus on strengthening subsidiarity – the principle that where possible, final decisions should be made nationally.” But all political decisions should be made nationally, that is the principle of national sovereignty which a genuine conservative government would uphold. But Cameron and the Conservative Party are seemingly opposed to sovereignty and independence; instead they want Britain to be ruled by others. Cameron probably hopes that he might have some input in that process but hope – and bribery - is all he has. And a “UK Bill of Rights” will not repatriate powers or introduce efficiency.

Beneath this is the unspoken belief that the rights of a nation’s individuals cannot be protected by their own state. Now the example of communist states, which in effect declared war on their own population, would seem to give substance to that, however, thankfully, very few states turned communist. Whilst the Labour Party did contain a number of extremists who as 'fellow travellers' might be expected to have favoured such genocidal policies against the British people under a communist government they never actually acquired power. Why then do the British people need protecting from a democratic government – and does the body which is set up to do that actually do that? If the government at Westminster does not act in the interest of the British people it does not follow that the ECHR will act on the issue because the ECHR as a supranational entirely clearly does not operate in the interest of the British nation. Under communism – an internationalist ideology - the state turned against the people. What is there to stop the ECHR, or any supranational entity such as the EU or the UN, all of which hold to an internationalist ideology, from turning against the people? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Abu Qatada - ECHR irresponsibility

European Court rules against Qatada deportation
BBC
Judges block Abu Qatada deportation
The Independent
Hate preacher to go 'free in months': Radical cleric cannot be deported say European Human Rights judges
Daily Mail

The European Court of Human Rights is undermining Britain’s national security by giving terrorists such as Abu Qatada grounds to remain in this country, senior MPs have warned.
Daily Telegraph
Never has there been a clearer example of the human rights regime undermining public safety.
Daily Express