Snowden bag-carrier Miranda's detention was lawful – UK appeal court The UK Court of Appeal has dismissed a case brought by the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald against his detention at Heathrow Airport – while stating that a key part of Britain's Terrorism Act breaches European human rights law. David Miranda, who was carrying encrypted documents on behalf of Greenwald to Rio de Janeiro, …
It would be interesting to see a prosecution. There comes a point where, if a wide spectrum of people from a Reg commentard to your department staff to the external QC you hired all say that your legislation is incompatible, it is hard to maintain a convincing argument that you thought it was.
Prosecutions can, and regularly do, succeed on that basis for theft, domestic violence etc. so why not ministers.
@Adam
A Minister wouldn't dare just pull such an interpretation out of his ass. He'll have documented advice from Government law officers and probably "independent" QCs as well. The fact that this Court disagreed with the rationale of the lower courts (albeit reaching the same verdict) clearly illustrates that there are solid alternative arguments and "reasonable doubt" is all it takes.
Further: the Court only ruled that there is an incompatibility. Both the HRA and the Terrorism Act remain valid law therefore so long as the Minister is following either one of them he's in the clear.
Finally: Crown Immunity. You can't prosecute a Minister of the Crown for actions taken as part of his official duties. Bliar would be in serious trouble otherwise.
"Bliar would be in serious trouble otherwise."
What you mean taking responsibility for his actions and facing the consequences if things don't go very well ?
Don't worry Tony believes St.Peter will do the accounting so you can leave it to God + Tony to ensure that justice will be done. Yeah right.
Ok, but why did the judge obey to "police state" law iso of human rights law?
Human rights (as defined by the European Commission) have, in my silly mind, the upper hand whenever they contradict the law of any country.
You are in the European Union, you apply what the European Union, for the good of all inhabitants, declares ... if some pesky borough law, county law, country law, state law of a union member state contradicts European Union law, tough, European law should win, always.
European laws were drafted with not only Britons, but French, Belgians, Spaniards, and Germans (among many others), they certainly have more sense than the bigoted Britons' law who live on their silly little Islands, auto-declared world empire ....
Yours truly,
Your silly little Briton living on the continent.
@Hans1
>>Human rights (as defined by the European Commission)
They aren't. The ECHR is a Council of Europe convention; the European Commission is the Executive branch of the European Union. The two are not related. They share some of the same members, but then so does the European Song Contest.
>>European laws were drafted with not only Britons...
It has nothing to do with European Law because it has nothing to do with the EU. It is an intergovernmental treaty which includes countries like: Russia, Georgia, Turkey, Armenia, Albania, Azerbaijan etc. You've probably noticed those aren't EU members.
You're possibly confusing the European Court of Justice with the European Court of Human Rights ...or else it was just an excuse for some anti-Anglo ranting ;)
It is if you incorporate laws from abroad and then enshrine them in UK law.
Don't believe everything UKIP tell you ;-) The Court has it's origin in the similarly named Convention, drafted under the leadership of a British MP (Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe), and designed to stop another Hitler. The fact that it causes UK governments so much apparent issues is the fault of the stupid legislation they try and rush through to appease the Daily Mail.
and almost by nature, everything and anything government does is "legal" by skeevy lawyer definition.
Doesn't mean it was "legal" before or that it's "legal" for anyone else. Or that it's "legal" for the political opposition when it comes to media time.
"Legal" and "right" or "correct" are not the same things. People who want to do wrong and get away with it, live off of playing the "no moral absolutes" card to cover their tracks, and "legal" whenever necessary.
... is probably what you'd expect a Judge Dyson to sanction, so it's good that he has been quite to forthcoming on the subject of the ECHR.
What happens next is going to very interesting. Will parliament actually act on the judgment, or will this simply be kicked into the long grass? It's an intriguing precursor to any judicial challenge to RIPA,
"What happens next is going to very interesting. Will parliament actually act on the judgment, or will this simply be kicked into the long grass? "
To discover the answer, you simply have to look at the government's reaction to the ECHR ruling that the blanket ban on prisoners voting was in breach of the convention. They ignored it.
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