Human Rights champion Liberty has rubbished Home Secretary Theresa May’s comments at the Conservative Party Conference concerning an illegal immigrant who could not be deported because he had a cat by way of justification that the Human Rights Act should be scrapped in this country.
The story, which the Home Secretary preceded with the comment: “I’m not making this up” is, according to Liberty, a case wherein the Home Office conceded it had failed to apply its own policy to a man with a British partner.
The Bolivian – who was neither a criminal nor an illegal entrant – had been with his partner for four years. He argued he should have benefited from a Home Office policy giving credit to couples who had been together for more than two years.
Both the initial judge and the senior immigration judge made clear that he should benefit from that policy and be granted the right to remain in the UK. The Home Office representative at the hearing conceded that the policy did apply.
Joint ownership of a cat was one small detail among many commonly given by couples seeking to prove a genuine relationship.
Mass support for the Human Rights Act in ComRes survey
Liberty has also released polling data that shows mass support (93%) for a law that protects rights and freedoms in Britain. The ComRes polling commissioned by Liberty should “send a clear message to the Government about the importance of the Human Rights Act”.
Key findings from the survey include:
- 95% of respondents believe that respect for privacy and family life is vital or important
- 96% feel the right to a fair trial is either vital or important
- 90% believe the right not to be tortured or degraded is either vital or important
For the survey, ComRes interviewed 1,007 GB adults by telephone between 20 and 21 September 2011. Data was weighted to be demographically representative of all GB adults.
For a copy of the full findings contact Liberty direct on (telephone) 020 7378 3656.
Rather than “promoting myths and misunderstandings” about the legislation, Liberty has now challenged the Government to do more to educate the public about their fundamental rights and freedoms. Less than a tenth of respondents (9%) to the survey remember ever having received or seen information from the Government explaining the Act.
Last word left with Parliament
Liberty’s director Shami Chakrabarti commented: “I had thought rather better of this Home Secretary than her dog whistle conference speech. It’s dangerously unbecoming of a Cabinet minister to misrepresent court judgments, especially where her own department conceded this case on appeal.”
Chakrabarti continued: “No-one got to stay because of a cat. She [the Home Secretary] well knows that the Human Rights Act leaves the last word on immigration control to Parliament. Perhaps the Prime Minister will explain how he’s going to scrap the Human Rights Act without ceding more decisions to European judges in Strasbourg? Why put your party at odds with 93% of people polled who value Human Rights protection in this country?”
The Bolivian man came to the UK as a student and had been living with his partner for four years at the time of his appeal. He applied for permission to remain in the UK on the basis of a Home Office policy (DP3/96, which has since been withdrawn) under which someone in a relationship with a person settled in the UK for more than two years could apply to stay here.
His evidence of the relationship included the fact that he and his partner had owned a cat together for several years. His application was refused by the Home Secretary and he appealed. The key issue was whether the policy DP3/96 should still apply to him.
The judge that first considered the case held that it did. On appeal before senior immigration judge Gleeson the Home Office representative conceded that the Home Office had misunderstood its own policy and that the man was entitled to remain here under DP3/96.
Judge Gleeson therefore ruled in the man’s favour, and that any failings in the decision by the first judge – including too much consideration of the shared cat – were immaterial.
Liberty fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference
Liberty’s policy director Isabella Sankey reported that it was “standing room only” in the Alexandria Suite at the Midland Hotel, Manchester on the Monday night of the Conservative Party Conference for the Liberty fringe event.
Welcoming Conservative delegates to Liberty’s 2011 fringe, Liberty leader Shami Chakrabarti reminded the audience of how those on the discussion panel had come together in recent years to resist “some of the worst excesses of authoritarian Government.”
Referring directly to the Home Secretary’s pre-conference strike against the Human Rights Act, Chakrabarti asked the panel members whether there was a risk of talking up Human Rights in the Arab Spring while “trashing them in an Indian Summer at home”?
Mary Riddell was first to speak. Observing that the Human Rights Act was “Churchill’s legacy” and “a bulwark against all sorts of evils”, Riddell ran through the various myths and misunderstandings that surround the Act, taking each of them apart in turn.
“There is much wrong with this country,” said Riddell. “Housing, inequality and the economy, etc, but the Human Rights Act is exempt from that category and should be a beacon for hope and justice in difficult times.”
Eleanor Laing MP told the audience about her Private Members Bill to commemorate the ancient British liberties contained in the Magna Carta. She vowed that a Conservative Government would never, ever change the law to give people less rights.
Member of the Home Affairs Committee, Nicola Blackwood MP, explained that her personal history had taught her that Human Rights have to be fought for.
In the UK, Blackwood suggested the concept of Human Rights has been so badly devalued that it’s almost impossible to have a debate on Human Rights based on fact.
Blackwood urged that the case for the Human Rights Act, which represented the basic principles of our society, had to be more convincingly argued in order to win over the sceptics.
Reference to Churchill’s legacy
Characteristically unafraid to expose vested interest, Peter Oborne began by observing how the false narrative on the Human Rights Act in certain parts of the media was driven by concern over Article 8 privacy protections and the impact on lucrative ‘kiss and tell’ stories.
Referring to ‘Churchill’s Legacy: the Conservative Case for the Human Rights Act (which Oborne co-wrote with Jesse Norman MP and launched at the Tory Party Conference in 2009), he said he was alarmed by the Home Secretary’s “attack” on the Act.
Praising Theresa May for her record in office so far, Oborne warned that the temptation to make “populist remarks” on the eve of conference should always be resisted.
Describing himself as “on the Eurosceptic side”, Oborne challenged the Home Secretary on how scrapping the Human Rights Act would return sovereignty, pointing out that it would instead pass power from British courts to the judges in Strasbourg.
He also challenged the moral position of the Government on the Article 3 prohibition on torture: “They would rather send terror suspects back to torture,” said Oborne. “I would rather put them on trial here.”
The Attorney General, Dominic Grieve QC MP, said that statutory protections against an “over-mighty State” were crucial. He pointed to both the value and the shortcomings of the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights and the common law in protecting rights.
In Grieve’s view, the Human Rights Act – and the European Convention on Human Rights which it enshrines – are not perfect but he said he would “defy any right-thinking person to disagree with their values”.
While the Human Rights Act might excite problems, Grieve suggested: “These were superficial in the scheme of things compared with the benefits that come.”
Liberty: stressing the strength of Article 8
Trailed in the weekend papers, the Home Secretary’s outburst on the Human Rights Act then formed what Liberty refers to as “the red meat” of her subsequent speech at conference.
The charge in that polemic, of course, is that the Act allows dangerous foreign criminals to ‘play the system’ and avoid deportation. Liberty fundamentally disagrees with that assertion.
“The strength of Article 8 is that all relevant factors will be weighed in the balance when a person’s deportation is being considered: the threat they pose, the seriousness of their offence, how long they have been in the UK and whether they have genuine and longstanding family ties, etc,” said Liberty’s Isabella Sankey.
“Is it not right that the courts consider the rights of children who have no control over whether their parents have committed offences? Or that someone who has been in the UK almost since birth has their family connections taken into account?”
Sankey continued: “As with so many areas of Human Rights Act reporting, many of the stories are misrepresented or fabricated. What you don’t hear from the Home Office is that, with many of these headline-grabbing cases, it’s administrative error and delay which has ultimately prevented deportation.”
Concluding that theme, Sankey stressed: “Often, the family ties that mean someone should be allowed to stay in the UK have only been developed long after an offence was committed. You don’t need to tamper with Churchill’s legacy to ensure that those who pose a risk and have no right to be here should not be allowed to stay. More efficiency in the system would safeguard against this. Sadly, that doesn’t make for such an eye-catching conference story.”
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