World of Badger

I’m genuinely shocked, not to mention angry and a little scared, by the news that the Court of Appeal has ruled that evidence obtained by torture can be used in UK courts. In a 2 to 1 decision, Lord Justice Laws and Lord Justice Pill granted the Home Secretary the right to hold terror suspects on the basis of intelligence from prisoners tortured abroad.

Human rights groups and experts on international law said Britain had, in effect, been given the green light to trawl for evidence from torture victims across the world.

The one sane judge, Lord Justice Neuberger, said that:

democratic societies, faced with terrorist threats, should not readily accept that the threat justifies the use of torture, or that the end justifies the means. It can be said that, by using torture, or even by adopting the fruits of torture, a democratic state is weakening its case against terrorists, by adopting their methods, thereby losing the moral high ground an open democratic society enjoys.

Peter Carter QC, chairman of the Bar’s human rights committee, said the ruling meant that:

the Government was being allowed to “connive in torture”. He added: “Under international law there is an absolute prohibition on torture. This is not just because it is an inhumane act but because of the rationale that the fruits of torture are very likely to be wholly unreliable and so it is irrational to rely on information obtained by torture.”

The director of the human rights group Liberty is quoted as saying:

As long as the Home Secretary does not inquire into how the information was obtained he can use it in any way he wishes. This would surely make Britain complicit in international acts of torture.

Amnesty International is also appalled by the ruling:

The rule of law and human rights have become casualties of the measures taken in the aftermath of 9/11. This judgement is an aberration, morally and legally.

The Guardian’s Leader sums up the ruling quite well, going as far as to say that we have completely lost our way in this country legally and morally:

The ramifications of yesterday’s ruling in the appeal court that evidence obtained by torture should be admissible in the UK are awesome. We have warned before of the way in which Britain’s “Guant�namo Bay” law erodes the most fundamental principles of the nation’s criminal justice system. Under the 2001 Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act, rushed through parliament following the al-Qaida attack on the US, foreign suspects can be detained indefinitely without charge or trial. Yesterday’s verdict goes much further, by eroding fundamental principles of international law.

The Leader goes on to point out that the ruling breaches a range of international treaty obligations including the European Convention on Human Rights, the UN convention against torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

None of the other 44 states that have incorporated the European convention on human rights has introduced detention without charge or trial, let alone allowed evidence generated by torture. Similarly, none of the 150 states of the UN convention has publicly taken such a position.

The judgment must not be allowed to stand.

Of course, that insane fuck Blunkett doesn’t see it like that. In a ranting, unhinged letter to today’s Independent, the Home Secretary says:

That such a court says I acted lawfully should put an end to concerns in this newspaper and elsewhere that the detainees rights’ are not being respected.

“Elsewhere” presumably being Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Committee of Privy Counsellors responsible for reviewing the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 (ATCSA), both of whom recommended the urgent repeal of powers allowing non-UK nationals to be detained indefinitely.

My commitment to civil and human rights is as profound as any leader writer of The Independent or its readers.

Well I read the Independent, so that’s clearly bollocks. Anyway…

…the powers are justified because there is a state of public emergency.

What state of fucking emergency?! This country is not in a state of emergency — unless one counts the dreadful erosion of basic civil rights under this government. A state of emergency is something that might be declared for a few days to deal with the aftermath of a terrible terrorist attack on the UK. But all we’ve got is a few rumours from our oh-so reliable intelligence services that some religious extremist may possibly, at some point in the future, perhaps try to carry out some sort of unspecified terrorist attack. Maybe. Well personally I think that threat is going to be with us for some years yet, even in a best-case scenario. So does that then mean that the UK is going to be in a permanent state of emergency, with Home Secretaries able to introduce whatever Draconian measures they see fit, in contravention of international law? State of emergency? State of hysteria more like.

I never cease to be amazed at how a newspaper which describes itself as “independent” can take such a rigid and stereotyped stance on justice and home affairs matters.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Blunkett goes on to say that he wants “a rational debate but based on facts”. Like we had over WMD perhaps? I’d like to see people imprisoned based on facts, judged in a court of law, rather than on his whim.

To protect our human rights we are not allowing them on to our streets in order to resume the activities that they were engaged in before they were picked up.

If these activities were illegal, put them on trial and present the evidence — there are plenty of laws that allow people planning to commit crimes to be prosecuted. If these activities were legal just not to your liking, then locking people up indefinitely without trial suggests the beginnings of a totalitarian state.

As Home Secretary, I must balance legal theory with the practical job of protecting people.

And by “legal theory” I guess he means the law — surely something he’s meant to uphold, not interpret as he sees fit and ignore other parts of it. I think he’s been watching too many repeats of The Equalizer or something. Why stop with terrorists, Dave? Get rid of the ASBOs and go straight to the electrodes to the genitals for all trouble-makers? Just as with the ruling that evidence gained by torture is admissible in court: the end justifies the means.

Oh yeah, and before I end my rant (hey, it’s been a while!), yet another government whitewash has been released, this time into how Downing Street leaked the Hutton Inquiry report to the Sun. Allegedly.