Lawyers challenge May threat to human rights laws

Lawyers have joined to criticise Prime Minister Theresa May after she said she was willing to legislate against current human rights laws in order to tackle terrorism.

At an election rally earlier this week, Mrs May said that if re-elected, her Government would make it easier for the authorities to deport foreign terrorist suspects back to their own countries, and "do more to restrict the freedom and movements of terrorist suspects when we have enough evidence to know they are a threat, but not enough evidence to prosecute them in full in court".

She added: "And if our human rights laws get in the way of doing it, we will change the law so we can do it."

Writing in the Guardian, Labour spokesman and former Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer responded: "In my five years as DPP I saw many cases involving serious terrorist plots. Not once did human rights laws prevent the Crown Prosecution Service from pursuing a prosecution, or our dedicated counter-terrorist teams from monitoring and apprehending suspects.

"From my experience both as DPP and previously as a human rights lawyer, I know that human rights and effective protection from terrorism are not incompatible. On the contrary, they go hand in hand."

The Human Rights Committee of the European Criminal Bar Association challenged the view that the UK could invoke article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights in order to derogate from the Convention. "To justify such a derogation the UK would have to contend that the 'life of the nation' was threatened", it stated. "In the absence of such a threat, or in the presence of an empty claim that such a threat obtained, any derogation would be an abuse of article 15 and a departure from the rule of law."

It added: "The ECBA stresses that our society in general and its values in particular cannot in any event be defended by departing from the rule of law", and quoted the late Aharon Barak, Chief Justice of Israel, who said: “The power of society to stand up against its enemies is based on the recognition that it is fighting for values that deserve protection. The rule of law is one of these values.” 

Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International's UK section, commented: "This is exactly the time that human rights must be protected and cherished, not attacked and undermined."