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Category: Law

  • Michael McColgan obituary

    My brother, Michael McColgan, who has died aged 83, was a lifelong socialist and political activist. He gave up his career as a German university lecturer to retrain as a lawyer so that he could represent people fighting for justice, and was involved in the cases of the Orgreave miners in the 1980s and in the fight for truth and justice following the Hillsborough disaster.

    Mike was born in Islington, north London, the son of Lilian (nee Martin), a librarian, and Patrick McColgan, a local government officer – both leftwing activists. He grew up in Chingford, Essex, and attended the Monoux grammar school, Walthamstow (now Sir George Monoux college).

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Nara Walker: the Australian woman suing Iceland

    Walker was convicted of assaulting her ex-husband in Reykjavík in 2017. Now she and eight other women are taking Iceland to court claiming human rights violations

    On a winter’s evening in January 2020 two women stood talking in the foyer of a cinema in Iceland’s capital, Reykjavík. One of them, dressed smartly for the occasion in a red blazer, was Eliza Reid, the wife of Iceland’s president. The other, listening intently, was Nara Walker, an Australian artist who’d cofounded the event that both women were there to celebrate – the Reykjavik Feminist film festival.

    At first glance, it wasn’t a remarkable scene. Unless you knew that Walker was still on probation for a serious assault conviction, having been released from a Reykjavík prison less than a year earlier. Or if you’d read the breathless coverage of her story in the tabloid media, where she’d been branded “the Australian tongue-biter” – the woman who bit off her husband’s tongue during a fight. In Iceland, and beyond, she was infamous.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • British judges have no place in Hong Kong

    British judges are lending credibility to an increasingly anti-democratic justice system in Hong Kong, argues Siobhain McDonagh

    The Orwellian reports coming from Hong Kong will come as no surprise to those of us who have been watching its legal system deteriorate (New Hong Kong barristers’ chief warns profession to stay out of politics, 21 January). Since the draconian national security law was imposed in 2020, Beijing’s interference in Hong Kong has been increasingly flagrant. As shocking as the attack on the rule of law in Hong Kong is, we should also be asking why British judges are still propping up a broken system.

    British judges have sat in Hong Kong’s court of final appeal since the territory was returned in 1997. But the deterioration of the city’s legal system means they are now lending a false veneer of respectability to Beijing’s campaign against human rights and political freedom.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Activist deceived into relationship with Met officer wins £229,000 compensation

    Award made to Kate Wilson after tribunal rules police grossly violated her human rights

    An environmental activist who was deceived into a two-year intimate relationship by an undercover police officer has been awarded £229,000 in compensation after winning a landmark legal case.

    Kate Wilson won the compensation after a tribunal ruled in a scathing judgment that police had grossly violated her human rights in five ways.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • ‘Putting lives at risk’: Bulgaria referred to rights body over Covid vaccine rollout

    Charity complains to Council of Europe after low uptake and failure to prioritise over-65 and people with health conditions

    Bulgaria’s government has been accused of negligence for failing to prioritise over-65s and people with pre-existing health conditions in its Covid vaccine rollout, in a case that exposes the low uptake of jabs in one of the EU’s poorest member states.

    The Open Society Foundations (OSF) charitable group said it was filing a formal complaint to the human-rights-focused Council of Europe, alleging that Bulgaria’s government had put lives at risk, possibly leading to thousands of avoidable deaths.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • £262bn investor says it will target bosses who fail on climate or human rights

    Aviva Investors says voting at AGMs will be influenced by policies on climate, human rights, biodiversity and executive pay

    Aviva Investors, an important UK asset manager, has put the directors of 1,500 companies on notice that it is willing to seek their removal if they fail to show enough urgency in tackling issues including the climate crisis and human rights.

    The firm said the way it votes on the re-election of company board members in the upcoming AGM season would be heavily influenced by its four key stewardship priorities for the year, which also include biodiversity and executive pay.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Hacking attack on Red Cross exposes data of 515,000 vulnerable people

    Global headquarters forced to shut down computer systems for programme that reunites families separated by conflict

    The International Committee of the Red Cross has been the victim of a cyber-attack in which hackers seized the data of more than 515,000 extremely vulnerable people, some of whom had fled conflicts.

    “A sophisticated cybersecurity attack against computer servers hosting information held by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was detected this week,” it said in a statement.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Torture complaint filed against new president of Interpol

    Move against Ahmed Nasser al-Raisi made by lawyer for human rights defender jailed in UAE

    A lawyer representing a jailed human rights defender in the United Arab Emirates has filed a torture complaint against the new president of Interpol, Maj Gen Ahmed Nasser al-Raisi, as the official made his first visit to the international police agency’s headquarters in the French city of Lyon.

    William Bourdon, a lawyer for the Emirati human rights defender and blogger Ahmed Mansour, said he filed the complaint against al-Raisi in a Paris court under the principle of universal jurisdiction. Mansour is serving a 10-year sentence in the UAE for charges of “insulting the status and prestige of the UAE” and its leaders in social media posts.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Elite Media Remember Lani Guinier as ‘Embattled’—and Forget How They Battled Her

     

    Boston Globe: Lani Guinier, civil rights champion and Harvard law professor, dies at 71

    The Boston Globe (1/8/22) framed its obituary for Lani Guinier around her teaching career and civil rights advocacy.

    “Harvard Law Professor Guinier Dies at 71; Known for Civil Rights Work, Public Service,” was the headline on the Boston Globe‘s January 8 obituary for teacher, voting rights advocate and author Lani Guinier. The story cited Harvard Law School dean John Manning, saying that Guinier “changed our understanding of democracy—of why and how the voices of the historically underrepresented must be heard and what it takes to have a meaningful right to vote.” New York’s Daily News (1/7/22) had “Lani Guinier, Civil Rights Attorney, Voting Rights Advocate, Dies at 71.”

    In big national media, it was different: The New York Times story (1/7/22) was headlined “Lani Guinier, Legal Scholar at the Center of Controversy, Dies at 71,” while the Washington Post (1/9/22) went with “Lani Guinier, Law Professor and Embattled Justice Department Nominee, Dies at 71.”

    For some elite media, what’s most important—about an event, a country or a human being—is whatever media have chosen to center, generally just the relationship to the official power that for them is the source of all meaning.

    In Guinier’s case, it’s the fact that she was nominated by Bill Clinton to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, but when conservative activists, upset about Supreme Court fights over Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, campaigned to attack her nomination by transparently distorting her opinions (Extra!, 7–8/93), Clinton dropped her like a hot rock. That is the “takeaway” from Guinier’s life and work.

    New York Times: Lani Guinier, Legal Scholar at the Center of Controversy

    The New York Times (1/7/22) stressed Guinier’s role as the “center of controversy.

    That corporate media center their own perspective does not mean they acknowledge their own role. No; the Times can report that Republican assertions that Guinier championed affirmative action quotas were baseless, and that many of her criticisms around, e.g., redistricting have since become “mainstream.” But don’t expect them to remember that on the day her nomination was withdrawn, the paper ran an op-ed (6/3/93) premised on the false idea that she was in favor of “segregating Black voters in Black-majority districts.”

    Or that when the paper finally devoted an article (6/4/93) to her actual views, rather than to the political firestorm that raged around them, after the nomination had already been killed, there still was not a single quote from any of her writings. “Almost everyone is relying on reconstructions by journalists and partisans, injecting further distortions into the process,” reporter David Margolick wrote—with that ”everyone,” as he acknowledged in an interview with FAIR, including himself.

    The Washington Post (1/9/22) can talk about how “conservative activists” seized on articles whose actual content they neglected to cite, in order to discredit Guinier—without even pretending to explore how some of their own leading lights, like Lally Weymouth (5/25/93), had attacked Guinier’s support for affirmative action while advancing their own support for protection for racial minorities—when they’re white South Africans (Washington Post, 7/15/93).

     

    The post Elite Media Remember Lani Guinier as ‘Embattled’—and Forget How They Battled Her appeared first on FAIR.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • The Rule Of Law Must Finally Evolve Into The Rule Of Justice

    Many politicians, academics, media pundits are wont of invoking the “rule of law”, a “rules-based international order”, “values diplomacy” etc.  But what do all these benevolent-sounding slogans actually mean in practice?  Who makes the rules, who interprets them, who enforces them?  What transparency and accountability accompany these noble pledges?

    In a very real sense, we already have a “rules based international order” in the form of the UN Charter and its “supremacy clause”, article 103 of which grants it priority over all other treaties and agreements.  The norms established in the Charter are rational, but effective enforcement mechanisms are yet to be created.

    We also have humanistic “values” that should guide diplomacy and peace-making – including the principle “pacta sunt servanda” (treaties must be implemented, art. 26 of the Vienna Convention on the law of treaties). 

    The post The Rule Of Law Must Finally Evolve Into The Rule Of Justice appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Join the fightback: Kill the Bill protests coming up this Saturday

    Activists are gathering across the country this Saturday to fight back against the Tory’s draconian Policing Bill. Kill The Bill protesters are set to turn out in force. As extensively reported by The Canary, the legislation expands stop and search powers and criminalise the livelihoods of GRT people among other things. And human rights charity Liberty has called the bill an “assault on basic civil liberties”:

    Fightback

    No Borders Manchester tweeted a list of locations where you can join the fight against this authoritarian new law:

    In the north of England these include:

    • 1pm at Briggate in Leeds city centre
    • 1pm at the Bombed Out Church in Liverpool
    • 1pm at St Peter’s Square in Manchester
    • 12pm, Grey’s Monument, Newcastle
    • and 2pm at Sheffield Town Hall

    The Midlands

    There will also be demonstrations against the bill in the Midlands:

    • 12pm in Coventry at Broadgate
    • 12pm at the Brian Clough statue in Nottingham
    • 12pm at Hanley Bus Station in Stoke-on-Trent
    • The Shrewsbury demo starts at 9am at Quarry Park.
    Southwest
    • Bristol on College Green at 1pm
    • Bath at Bath Abbey at 12pm
    • Cornwall at George Eustice’s Office in Camborne from 2pm
    •  Exeter from 12pm at Bedford Square
    •  and the Plymouth demo will start at Charles Cross Police Station from 12pm
    Wales
    • Cardiff’s St John Batchelor Statue from 1pm
    • Newtown from outside Santander on the High Street at 12pm

    Additionally, the main London Kill the Bill demo will start at Lincoln’s Inn Fields from 12pm.

    Why we’re taking part

    Some of those taking part explained their reasons for doing so. Gypsy Roma and Traveller community member Anne Marie:

    Under the bill, our vehicles, which are often our only homes, could be confiscated and destroyed, whilst parents could be imprisoned and their children taken into care

    Disabled People Against Cuts activist Andy Greene:

    All of disabled people’s rights and freedoms were gained by us going out and protesting to demand them. All the harm and damage done to disabled people by government policies over the last ten years since austerity was imposed, would have continued unchecked without our community being able to come out onto the streets and tell its own story. These changes will affect disabled people’s right to protest and make us slide back to a state of disability apartheid, that we fought so hard to break down.

    The coordinator of the Muslim LGBT Network, Ejel Khan:

    As a person of colour and a Muslim I have been stopped and searched on several occasions and the authorities need no reasonable justification now to continue to racially profile individuals such as myself. If the bill is passed racial divisions in society will become more entrenched than they currently are. This is state-sanctioned apartheid, which positively discriminates against minority ethnic communities.

    Marvina Newton of Black Lives Matter Leeds and United for Black Lives:

    Protest has done so much for people who look like me. If it wasn’t for protesters such as Paul Stephenson, who was once considered disruptive, Black people in this country wouldn’t be able to ride on a bus in some cities or even buy a drink in a bar. This bill seeks to silence our fight against injustice while persecuting me for wanting an equitable society.

    NHS worker and campaigner Karen Reissmann:

    As a health worker, I think it is essential that we have the right to protest without fear. Too much is at risk. How can being annoying or a nuisance compare to millions of operations and medical appointments cancelled and 100,000 unfilled NHS vacancies.

    Stand up for your rights

    The proposed law is currently at the report stage, with some calling this weekend’s demonstrations the “last legal protests”:

    Show solidarity this Saturday

    And in the meantime, it’s a good idea to support those Kill the Bill activists currently in prison. As The Canary reported on 11 January, 10 people are currently in jail for the demonstration in Bristol in March 2021. On 9 January supporters held a solidarity demonstration for the eight held at HMP Portland in Dorset.

    One activist told The Canary:

    Noise demonstrations like this are extremely important. We do this to remind those who have been imprisoned that they are not alone, and that the struggle continues on their behalf outside of the prison walls. People are not forgotten as soon as they are behind bars. They are bearing the consequences of the repressive laws that we are fighting against, and they remain a central part of our movement.

    So whether it is prison solidarity, turning out for the protests this weekend, or both, its time to get involved with the fightback against Priti Patel’s authoritarian Policing Bill.

    Featured image – Wikimedia Commons, cropped to 770 x 403, licenced under CY BB 4.0

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Increased repression and violence a sign of weakness, says Human Rights Watch

    Watchdog’s latest report argues autocrats around the world are getting desperate as opponents form coalitions to challenge them

    Increasingly repressive and violent acts against civilian protests by autocratic leaders and military regimes around the world are signs of their desperation and weakening grip on power, Human Rights Watch says in its annual assessment of human rights across the globe.

    In its world report 2022, the human rights organisation said autocratic leaders faced a significant backlash in 2021, with millions of people risking their lives to take to the streets to challenge regimes’ authority and demand democracy.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Leading campaigner urges UK to target wealth of Kazakhstani elite

    Bill Browder, who pushed for Magnitsky law, says anti-corruption laws should be used in response to deaths of at least 164 protesters

    One of the architects of the UK’s updated sanctions legislation has called for the government and crime agencies to target the wealth of the Kazakhstani elite following the deaths of at least 164 people during unrest.

    Bill Browder, an American investor turned campaigner, said the British government could use anti-corruption legislation to target the rulers of Kazakhstan on the grounds of human rights abuses.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Desmond Tutu’s funeral and Kazakhstan clashes: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

    A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Hong Kong

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • ‘Gay cake’ row: man loses seven-year battle against Belfast bakery

    ECHR says Gareth Lee’s case against bakery that refused to make cake with ‘support gay marriage’ message is inadmissible

    A man has lost a seven-year legal battle against a Belfast bakery that refused to make him a cake emblazoned with the message “support gay marriage” as the European court of human rights ruled that his claim was inadmissible, prompting disappointment from gay rights groups.

    On Thursday the ECHR, by a majority decision, said it would not reconsider the decision of the UK supreme court, which had overturned a £500 damages award imposed on Ashers bakery, which is run by evangelical Christians.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Jurors see the bigger picture: activists who were cleared in court

    Cases have included climate, environment, human rights and anti-war protests where damage to property was not denied

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Tory peer to lead boycott of Coca-Cola over role in Beijing Winter Olympics

    Exclusive: sponsorship unacceptable given concern about human rights in China, says Robert Hayward

    A Tory peer has vowed to lead a boycott of Coca-Cola products over the company’s sponsorship of the 2022 Beijing Olympics, saying its bid to profit from an event organised by the Chinese government was shameless.

    Robert Hayward, who was a founding chairman of the world’s first gay rugby club and a former personnel manager for Coca-Cola Bottlers, said it was unacceptable for firms to help to boost the use of the Winter Games as a propaganda exercise given concerns over the treatment of 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang province.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Russian court orders closure of country’s oldest human rights group

    Supreme court ruling on Memorial is watershed moment in Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on independent thought

    Russia’s supreme court has ordered the closure of Memorial International, the country’s oldest human rights group, in a watershed moment in Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on independent thought.

    The court ruled Memorial must be closed under Russia’s controversial “foreign agent” legislation, which has targeted dozens of NGOs and media outlets seen as critical of the government.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Removing British citizenship under the nationality and borders bill | Letters

    Security and borders minister Damian Hinds says such action would only be taken against the most dangerous people, such as terrorists, extremists and serious organised criminals

    I was disappointed to read Naga Kandiah’s comments on the removal of British citizenship (Like Shamima Begum, I could soon be stripped of British citizenship without notice, 15 December). Removing British citizenship on grounds of being “conducive to the public good” is used against the most dangerous of people, such as terrorists, extremists and serious organised criminals.

    It’s been possible for over a century. It comes with a right of appeal and is only used in exceptional circumstances in a small number of cases each year. The nationality and borders bill doesn’t change any of that – it’s only about how someone is notified.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • ‘Foreign criminals’ are just an excuse: the Tories are trying to take away rights from all of us | Daniel Trilling

    The idea that the UK is not deporting enough people is a convenient justification for overhauling the Human Rights Act

    Boris Johnson’s government is trying to chip away at your rights, but it wants you to believe that this is only a problem for other people. The police bill threatens the right to protest, but it is presented as a measure to deal with “extremist” political activists. The judicial review bill threatens to curtail the right to judicial review – a process that allows individuals to seek redress from public institutions that may have harmed them – but it is framed as an effort to reclaim power from “unelected” judges. The elections bill, which seeks to introduce voter ID, could effectively disenfranchise 2 million people, but the government claims it will address “fraud”.

    Each time the government wishes to push forward with measures such as these, it evokes a folk devil – a threatening outsider or internal enemy whose presence is used to justify the harsh new reform. These folk devils are more myth than reality, but they can cause great social damage if left unchallenged. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the government’s most recent initiative: its wide-ranging plans to overhaul the Human Rights Act, which were announced last week.

    Daniel Trilling is the author of Lights in the Distance: Exile and Refuge at the Borders of Europe

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Human rights are being attacked by the government, not fine-tuned | Letters

    Nick Moss says the struggle to defend and extend our rights has to be conducted on the streets, as well as in parliament and the courts. John Robinson fears that we are facing an existential attack on our democracy

    I agree with Martha Spurrier that this government is constructing for itself a legislative armoury that is intended to be a “rewriting of the rules so only the government can win” (Who will stop human rights abuses if the government puts itself above the law?, 14 December). There is, though, a flaw in the European convention on human rights. The right to liberty and security (article 5), the right to a fair trial (article 6), the right to respect for private and family life (article 8), freedom of thought, conscience and religion (article 9), freedom of expression (article 10), and freedom of assembly and association (article 11) are all conditional rights.

    Variously, these are all – to a greater or lesser extent – subject to exceptions that are “necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic wellbeing of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Labour urged to vote down ‘draconian’ changes to crime bill

    Call for opposition to counter ministers’ ‘cynical attempt to bypass parliamentary scrutiny’

    The Labour party has been urged to take advantage of a unique opportunity to vote down a raft of last-minute amendments to an already controversial crime bill, which human rights activists have described as “a dangerous power grab”.

    The 18 pages of amendments to the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill were introduced by government peers in November, on the day nine members of the protest group Insulate Britain appeared in court charged with contempt.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • The Guardian view on human rights: not foreign to British instincts | Editorial

    The justice secretary’s plans are cover for a coup by an executive that wishes to restrict the power of the judiciary

    Although the United Kingdom was the first signatory of the European convention on human rights in 1950, it was five decades before the rights set out in the convention became accessible in domestic law. The Human Rights Act was a recognition that the authorities don’t always get things right and that statute was needed to enable in-country challenges to the state, protecting the public. Before the HRA was brought in, there was a steady flow of people to the European court of human rights seeking justice. Rulings in Strasbourg led the British government to strengthen oversight of deportations on the grounds of national security and helped equalise the age of consent for gay sex.

    By bringing the convention home, Britons could vindicate their rights in courtrooms in their own country. Human rights are legal claims on the state; so the legality of state conduct became the business of this country’s courts. When Met detectives failed to carry out an effective investigation into the serial sex attacker John Worboys, the force found itself liable for mistakes. Parents used the law to stop benefit cuts for hospitalised children. Human rights law meant women were not routinely cross-examined in court by those they accused of rape. For the families of the 97 people killed in the Hillsborough disaster, the HRA was instrumental in helping reveal the truth about the circumstances leading to their loved ones’ deaths.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Windrush: high court rules claimants’ human rights breached by Home Office

    Minister could have applied discretion when considering citizenship applications, says judge

    Members of the Windrush generation had their human rights breached when the Home Office refused to grant them citizenship, the high court has ruled.

    Eunice Tumi and Vernon Vanriel were refused citizenship after being told by the home secretary they did not fulfil the residence requirement of having been in the UK on the date five years before they made the application for citizenship, the court heard.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Like Shamima Begum, I could soon be stripped of British citizenship without notice | Naga Kandiah

    Clause 9 in the nationality and borders bill will strike fear and uncertainty into the hearts of black and Asian Britons

    At first glance, Shamima Begum and I don’t have much in common. She fled Britain when she was a schoolgirl to join Islamic State. I came to the UK from Sri Lanka in 2005 and qualified here as a public and human rights lawyer. I became a British citizen in 2015.

    Begum was born in the UK as a British citizen on the basis of her parents’ immigration status. She was stripped of her citizenship using a controversial power introduced after the 2005 London bombings, which allows the government to remove British citizenship from dual nationals if doing so is “conducive to the public good”. The use of this power increased from 2010 and further increased in 2014.

    Naga Kandiah is a solicitor at MTC Solicitors

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Law Requires Biden To Cancel Oil Lease Sale To Prevent Climate Harm

    Washington — Conservation groups submitted formal comments today urging cancelation of February’s federal oil and gas lease auctions, saying the Biden administration is legally required to prevent harm from the leasing program’s greenhouse gas emissions, not just disclose it.

    “The Biden administration must do more than simply talk about climate change, it has a duty to take action on a scale and with a sense of urgency that the climate crisis demands,” said Kyle Tisdel, attorney and Climate & Energy Program director with Western Environmental Law Center. “The ongoing sale and development of federal oil and gas is not only inconsistent with climate science, but a breach of the moral obligation we have to current and future generations.”

    The post Law Requires Biden To Cancel Oil Lease Sale To Prevent Climate Harm appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • The Guardian view on China’s Winter Olympics: remember the Uyghurs | Editorial

    The IOC says it stays out of politics. But what is happening in Xinjiang is a fundamental matter of human rights

    The financial crisis of 2008 was the moment which cemented both China’s rise and its growing confidence as the west faltered. But the Olympics held in Beijing a few months earlier was the global symbol of its ascendancy: a coming-out party which proclaimed its return to the forefront of political and economic power, greeted with genuine international enthusiasm, despite the misgivings of dissidents.

    Fewer will celebrate the Winter Games due to kick off in Beijing in February. Last week, the UK and Canada joined the US and Australia in announcing a diplomatic boycott, and New Zealand has said it will not send anyone of ministerial level – to the wrath of China, which warned that countries will “pay a price” for the decision. (France will participate as usual, with Emmanuel Macron describing the boycott as “insignificant”, and much of Europe remains undecided). Concern for tennis champion and three-time Olympian Peng Shuai, since she alleged that a former senior leader had coerced her into sex, have magnified attention to China’s human rights record – and to the International Olympic Committee’s keenness to reassure the world that there is nothing to worry about, a repeated pattern.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Who will stop human rights abuses if the government puts itself above the law? | Martha Spurrier

    Dominic Raab’s attempt to hollow out protections and stifle judges will make state abuse of power unpunishable

    Today Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, announced plans to “overhaul” the Human Rights Act, bring in a new British bill of rights and, as he put it, “restore common sense” to our laws. In reality, he is making real his long-held dream to weaken vital human rights protections, make justice conditional on good behaviour and insulate the state from accountability.

    Raab’s plans make for grim reading. They include stripping away the right to family and private life. This is being done under the guise of the deportation of “foreign criminals”, a proposal that goes hand in hand with the government’s determination to use the revoking of citizenship as a punishment, creating instead a tiered system of rights protection based on your immigration status. But human rights are universal – take them from one group and you take them from all of us. And of course the right to a private and family life goes a lot wider than immigration. If the government hollows out these protections, we won’t be able to protect our private data, fight evictions, demand LGBT equality or resist mass surveillance.

    Martha Spurrier, a British barrister and human rights campaigner, is the director of Liberty

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Who will stop human rights abuses if the government puts itself above the law? | Martha Spurrier

    Dominic Raab’s attempt to hollow out protections and stifle judges will make state abuse of power unpunishable

    Today Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, announced plans to “overhaul” the Human Rights Act, bring in a new British bill of rights and, as he put it, “restore common sense” to our laws. In reality, he is making real his long-held dream to weaken vital human rights protections, make justice conditional on good behaviour and insulate the state from accountability.

    Raab’s plans make for grim reading. They include stripping away the right to family and private life. This is being done under the guise of the deportation of “foreign criminals”, a proposal that goes hand in hand with the government’s determination to use the revoking of citizenship as a punishment, creating instead a tiered system of rights protection based on your immigration status. But human rights are universal – take them from one group and you take them from all of us. And of course the right to a private and family life goes a lot wider than immigration. If the government hollows out these protections, we won’t be able to protect our private data, fight evictions, demand LGBT equality or resist mass surveillance.

    Martha Spurrier, a British barrister and human rights campaigner, is the director of Liberty

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Raab’s human rights proposals condemned as ‘blatant power grab’

    Justice secretary is facing a number of calls to row back on plans to strengthen power of the state

    Plans to overhaul the Human Rights Act are a blatant power grab with the aim of putting the government above the reach of the law, pressure groups and opposition parties have said.

    Launching a three-month consultation on a new bill of rights in the Commons, Dominic Raab faced a number of calls to row back on plans to strengthen the power of the state against the rights of the individual.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.