Thank-you for your responses to my messages. Yes, I know Soering, and it’s a case that I use almost daily at work.

I’m a barrister who specialises in human rights, and as I guess you can tell, this is a subject close to my heart. I want to protect the civil liberties of law abiding people in this country, and I believe that in order to do that we need to look at the bigger picture. This may sometimes mean forfeiting the rights of the few to benifit the many.

I don’t see another way….

(and thank-you for your views on The Trial. :> )

H

Generally, they would be. The problem is that we, as a nation, also take a dim view of people being killed or tortured by their own countries. Where there are realistic concerns that this is exactly what will happen to any returned terrorists (and in many countries that is a likely outcome) we don’t return them.

Some countries have given the UK a ‘memorandum of understanding’ that they will not torture returned individuals. There is a significant debate about what standing these have and whether they are a sufficient safeguard. Recent case law from the Court of Appeal decided they are not but a further appeal seems likely.

In the meantime, the UK government feels it has to do something with these individuals. It is an irony that it is respect for human rights that leads to a state of affairs where control orders, which subject an individual to extraordinary limits on their personal rights, are brought in.

Sometimes there aren’t easy answers, just least bad options. One of the key reforms that the government could bring in is to make more use of covert phone tap evidence in court. It prefers not to but this could sometimes allow prosecution where, otherwise, there is not sufficient evidence.

Incidentally, I agree that The Trial is close on unreadable.

I also wonder what the sense is of tagging someone who is viewed to be a potential suicide bomber. Presumably such a person would be rather undaunted by the fact that the police are alerted to him moving outside of his permitted area – knowing that they will be dead before they are caught.

Finally, and perhaps more controversially, I think there is a real need to take some tough decisions in order to keep the public safe and to ensure that individuals who are found – by a tribunal – to be a threat are dealt with. My personal view is that in circumstances where individuals are found to be a genuine threat, they should be returned to their own country irrespective of the decision in Soering.

Specifically, I believe that if a foreign national is minded to kill, they have no right to be afforded the luxury of staying in this country. I believe that they should be returned home, thereby allowing the masses here in the UK a better chance to exercise their right to live peacefully.

Nice post FP :>