Following the recent debacle in the UK concerning the radical muslim cleric Abhu Katada, has the ECHR gone too far interfering in the politics of another country by forbidding his extradition to his homeland of Jordan.
It would seem that the 'rights' of the victims are being trodden on in favour of the perpetrators, time & time again the individual rights of criminals are causing distress to the victims & their families as the ECHR ensures that only the rights of the 'criminal' are to be considered, it would appear that victims have no rights.
The British government is drawing up a bill which will result(if passed in the Commons & Lords) in a withdrawal from the ECHR in favour of a British charter on human rights.
There are currently 160,000 outstanding cases awaiting rulings at ECHR, estimated to take 12 to 15 years to attend to, with more adding to it every day. In the UK they allow people awaiting deportation to stay in the country whilst they appeal to the ECHR. With a national charter these cases will be dealt with much swifter, benefiting those that should have the right to stay aswell as benefiting the tax payers that would otherwise have to pay the welfare bill of the those that should be deported, as anyone designated for deportation is forbidden to work.
Interested in your views on this very controversial issue.
Yes the USA does use torture but it is careful to do this by proxy in most cases. It's a moot point as to whether or not the UK should extradite in such cases. Indeed the extradition arrangements of the UK with the USA has become so asymetric as to be nonsensical. Just part of the arrangements of client states with the Imperial Power I suppose. It's always possible to find an extreme example to justify a broad brush attack on that which one doesn't like. Certainly Cameron and the Tory Right don't like the ECHR but the europhobes in the party tend to concatenate the Court of Human Rights which I don't think is a European Union institution with their hated EU.
Unfortunately the ECHR does not make a difference between those with a genuine (as in their charters) cause for human right's violations and those who simply use the system, such as this Khatada. And the ECHR does not make any difference in the set of values one uses when appealing on "human rights". The human rights as defined by Khatada would almost certainly be very different from those defined by your average man / woman in the street.
But I guess the long history of trying to explain why criminals become criminals doesn't help. They're too often regarded upon by the system as victims of their circumstances, the poor helpless beings....
In the plainest terms. No. The European Court of Human Rights unfortunately is in the business of protecting all our human rights and that includes people whose politics do not always appeal to liberal Westerners. Khatada is a buffoon and a dangerous buffoon at that but the UK ceased to rely on evidence gained through torture some time in the 16th century.
This does not of course chime well with the Right -Wing press or the populist politician.