Is Justice Truly Blind?
So, Abu Qatada is still with us. If I can get my head around this, the Judiciary here are concerned that should he be deported back to Jordan to face trial, that trial would be unfair on the grounds that evidence against him was probably obtained under torture.
The three Judges were afraid that he, Qatada, could face a flagrant denial of justice if sent back.
This is where I have a problem with the Human Rights Act; it seems to me that the judiciary in the UK take it to extremes.
Stay with me on this; If the case against a person in his own country is open and shut with the result being a foregone conclusion and the only sentence is death; do you deport them to die or do you say that, no matter what their wrongdoings in this country, it would be against their Human Rights to send them back to die?
Qatada was convicted by the Jordanian courts on terror charges, in his absence, in 1999. If, as I have always believed, the Law in this country is about proof and not hearsay; why then is the judgement about his deportation based on a probability? To quote the three Judges in the Court of Appeal,
“Siac, (Special Immigration Appeals Commission) was entitled to conclude, (in their ruling of November 2012) that there is a real risk that impugned statements will be admitted in evidence at a retrial and that, in consequence, there is a real risk of a flagrant denial of justice.”
Master of the Rolls Lord Dyson added that whilst he accepted Qatada is regarded as a very dangerous person that was not a relevant consideration under Human Rights Laws.
Ever since Blair adopted the Human Rights Act into British Law there have been problems. Critics of it often point out that it appears to favour the criminal over the victim(s). Given the society which ‘New Labour’ fostered, that is an argument I am not prepared to take up in this post.
Suffice to say, apart from the many lawyers who seem to make a good living off the back of the Human Rights Act, there are many in the judiciary who wish that it would simply go away. I can probably get away with saying that it has done more to undermine confidence in the British legal system and the police than any other loony act or decision taken by loony New Labour when they were in Office.
I am not going to jump on the bandwagon and say, ‘scrap it’ because I actually believe there is some good in it. In my opinion it is a typical piece of Socialist legislation and therein lies the problem. It was drawn up to protect “the masses” but, invariably, protects those who sin against “the masses”! It needed a bit more thought and a lot less clauses.
Martin Luther King wrote; ‘Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.’
King’s quote, I believe, demonstrates all that is wrong with the Human Rights Act in its present form. We, the British Public, want rid of Qatada because he poses a very real threat to our safety through his hate sermons and high level of extremist support. He was even described as Osama bin Laden’s right hand man in Europe. However, we have an extradition treaty with Jordan and they, quite rightly, expect us to honour that treaty, as we would expect them to reciprocate should the need arise.
It is not just the EU and their dreaded European Court of Human Rights that is throwing a metaphorical spanner in the works as far as Qatada is concerned. The United Nations also plays a part in this debacle. We have the UN Convention Against Torture, to which the UK is a signatory.
This says; ‘States are obliged to refrain even from complicity in torture, and thus are forbidden from deporting people to places where a real risk of torture exists.’
It is known that torture is rife in Jordan and Human Rights Watch has documented allegations of severe abuse. There does seem to be an irony of sorts here. Dare I mention the “dirty” word OIL? I say this because the prospect of torture did not stop the UK from deporting people to Gaddafi’s Libya!
Where does this leave the UK Government? Abu Qatada al-Filistini, born Omar Mahmoud Othman, in 1959/60, is a Palestinian Muslim of Jordanian citizenship. He came to the UK in 1993 on a forged UAE passport with his wife and five children. He requested asylum on grounds of religious persecution. He claimed he had been tortured in Jordan.
He was granted asylum in 1994.
In 1999 he was sentenced in absentia by a court in Jordan for conspiracy to carry out terror attacks and given life imprisonment with hard labour, subsequently in 2000 a further 15 years was added to his sentence for his involvement in a plot to bomb tourists attending Millennium celebrations in Jordan.
He was arrested in 2001on suspicion of being connected to a German terrorist cell. However, all charges were dropped. Then, in 2002 he was arrested under the Anti Terrorism Act and put in Belmarsh Prison. This is where his ten year plus battle against extradition began.
Back to the question, ‘where does this leave the UK Government?’
In limbo I’m afraid. Theresa May says she will carry on fighting to get this odious man off our island but, I fear, unless we, Great Britain, get out of the EU Qatada will forever flaunt the Law. Bear in mind it is not just Qatada. There are several Muslim extremists languishing at Her Majesty’s pleasure of whom the UK are equally impotent to do anything about and who will be free to walk our streets in a few months time.
Don’t be under any illusion that Mrs May can do anything about the situation. The UK cannot alter the ECHR nor can it do anything about the wordy, all encompassing UN Convention Against Torture. Cameron is too soft to go anywhere near them, all she is likely to get from him is rhetoric. Clegg believes in the EU with his heart and soul and Miliband is a Europhile through and through.
So, is Justice Blind?
Let’s just say that until the UK Government sees sense and gets us out of the EU, Justice will be heavily blindfolded!
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