Subject:
Judges of Europe show contempt for British courts
Salahuddin Amin is appealing against his sentence, August 27,2012 By Leo McKinstry
ONCE envisaged as the protector of civilisation the European human rights regime is now a menace to the moral integrity of our society. Far from upholding democracy it systematically undermines our national independence and the rule of law. Instead of safeguarding the vulnerable it serves as a destructive charter for terrorists and criminals. In its twisted world, dominated by cynical lawyers and Left-wing ideologues, the so-called rights of our enemies count for far more than those of the decent, law-abiding British public.
The story of our relationship with the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg is one of deepening national humiliation. Now in the latest act of degradation two Muslim terrorists have launched a legal bid to have their convictions in the British courts overturned by Strasbourg on human rights grounds.
Salahuddin Amin was given a life sentence in 2007 for his part in a plot to cause carnage in the South-east of England by detonating a massive bomb filled with the fertiliser ammonium nitrate. The potential targets of Amin’s terror cell were either the Ministry of Sound nightclub in south London or the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent.
But British legal sovereignty means nothing in the perverted culture of European human rights
At his trial the judge called him and his four fellow conspirators “ruthless misfits who should be removed from society for its own protection”. The other applicant is just as dangerous. Rangzieb Ahmed, from Lancashire, was a senior member of the Al Qaeda global
terror network, acting as the linkman between operatives in Britain and their commanders abroad, particularly in Pakistan. In 2008 he was found guilty of “directing terrorism”, the first defendant in Britain to be convicted of such a charge. Like Amin he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
BUT now this repellent pair are attempting to use the European Court of Human Rights to gain their freedom. They claim that their rights were infringed because the British authorities, in collecting evidence against them, colluded in their torture by the Pakistani security services. This allegation has already been addressed by the British courts and thrown out. Indeed the trials of the two men could not have been more scrupulously conducted.
The proceedings against Amin at the Old Bailey lasted no less than 13 months and involved 105 prosecution witnesses. But British legal sovereignty means nothing in the perverted culture of European human rights. So now officials at Strasbourg have decided that the application from Amin and Ahmed can proceed. Our Government is compelled to respond. If Strasbourg is not satisfied with London’s answer then a full hearing will be held, which could overturn the original convictions.
It is an outrage that our own courts should be subjected to bullying by judges from places such as Russia, Azerbaijan and Serbia, which have nothing like our record of fairness. We are losing our self-respect and being treated as nothing more than a vassal state in a continental judicial empire. The willingness of our political class to remain part of this disgraceful system is nothing short of institutionalised masochism.
Moreover the rulings of Strasbourg represent the depths of moral inversion. The court graphically demonstrates the sickness of its values by systematically undermining the guardians of our society and defending those bent on our destruction. If the likes of Amin and Ahmed had their way we would soon be living under brutal Islamic rule where all but the diehard fundamentalists would have no rights at all. Yet this is the terrifying world that the arrogant jurists of Strasbourg will create if they maintain their stance of complicity in the Islamist threat.
This latest episode is part of a pattern of European contempt for Britain. It follows the block on the deportation to Jordan of Abu Qatada to face terrorism charges, a farce that is estimated to have cost the taxpayer over £3million.
European legislation is also thought to have prevented the removal of around 5,000 foreign criminals from Britain, many of them on the grounds that they have a “right to a family life” under Article 8 of the convention on human rights, having started a relationship or fathered children here. Similarly Strasbourg loudly demands that the British Government gives the vote to prisoners, explicitly against the wishes of the British people and the ruling coalition.
THE concept of human rights used to be a noble ideal but the term has been hopelessly debased by the antics of the Strasbourg court.
Others have played their role in this negative process, such as human rights lawyers who make a fortune from long drawn-out cases.
In the last decade alone law firms working regularly for terror suspects are estimated to have charged the taxpayer more than £110million. Progressive campaigners are just as bad, using human rights cases to advance their hard-Left political agenda against the public will.
It was never meant to be like this. When the convention was first drawn up in 1950 in the aftermath of the Second World War the aim was to prevent another descent into the horrors of genocide or totalitarianism. The architect behind the document was Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, a tough Scottish lawyer and Tory MP. A firm believer in the death penalty and rigorous action against criminality he would have been appalled at the way the convention is now being used to weaken our judiciary and democratic institutions, the opposite of his intention.
The slide away from the founding principles has become intolerable. Withdrawal from the jurisdiction of the court is the only hope for our nation.
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