Human rights

Because our Parliament discusses little of significance anymore, most of the public tend to ignore it. The perception that the weekly silliness of Prime Minister’s Questions constitutes Parliamentary business is enough to put any normal person off.  And apart from that weekly bun-fight, even the media barely bothers to report on the work of either House any longer. Occasionally something still happens in the Commons or the Lords that is worthy of serious attention but because of its form elsewhere, such occasions fail to get the attention they deserve. Such is the Bill proposed by Baroness Cox, which had its second reading in the Lords on Friday. Beneath its title

Chris Grayling’s appointment as Justice Secretary in the reshuffle was the move that pleased Conservative MPs almost above anything else. Today he showed the House of Commons why his is a popular appointment. Announcing the government’s intention to appeal against the European Court of Human Right’s ruling that indefinite sentences breach human rights, Grayling said this: ‘Of course the ECHR ruling this morning was very much about the issue of rehabilitation, something I feel very strongly about, something that needs to be clear and present within prisons as well as after prisons. ‘However, I’m very disappointed by the ECHR decision this morning. I have to say it is not an

The situation in Egypt remains perilous, as protests mount against the military government which has delayed announcing the result of last weekend’s vote. Preliminary estimates, overseen by a panel of judges, put the Muslim Brotherhood ahead by 900,000 votes. But this is being contested by former Mubarak henchman, Ahmed Shafiq. Election monitors are examining more than a hundred alleged cases of multiple election fraud. This is the latest popular grievance against the military government, which has prorogued parliament, deferred parliamentary elections and suspended rights of demonstration in recent weeks. The BBC reports that human rights campaigners and democracy activists are warning that a ‘meaningful transfer of powers’ will not take

Football dominates the newspapers this morning, with England due to begin their European Championship campaign tomorrow. But the issue of racism in Ukraine, and to a lesser extent Poland, is a major feature of the coverage, with some commentators suggesting that players should refuse to play if their teammates are subjected to abuse. Ruud Gullit, of sexy football fame, is the latest retired star to back unilateral walk-offs.  UEFA, the European football governing body, has already said that its on-pitch officials will book any player who leaves the field, which has outraged numerous players, including the frenetic Manchester City and Italy striker Mario Balotelli. I imagine that lawyers will also

The Dutch government has just banned foreigners from the country’s ‘coffee-shops’ — aka, cannabis cafés. Given how often we’re told that you can’t ban EU members from doing anything, how did they manage it? Basically, it all comes down to residency. If you live there, then you can apply for what’s being called a ‘weed pass’. If you don’t live there, then no dice. But is it legal for the Dutch government to ban entry to EU citizens in this way? A group of 19 coffee-shop owners decided to go to court over the matter, worried about this potential loss of custom. But a Dutch judge threw out their case,

The combination of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights is, I predict, going to give David Cameron an increasing number of headaches in the coming months. As Fraser wrote yesterday, Michael Pinto-Duschinsky’s principled resignation from the coalition’s Commission on the British Bill of Rights has revealed that this body was never really serious about dealing with the problem. The exposure of this Commission as merely a holding device will add to the pressure on the Prime Minister to clarify what he actually intends to do about the problem. The fact that the Cameroon’s favoured think tank, Policy Exchange, have today hired Pinto-Duschinsky shows

The Commons will debate the UK’s controversial extradition treaty with the US and the European Arrest Warrant later today. The debate has been brought by Dominic Raab MP. He was on the Today programme this morning, explaining that he wanted to introduce a ‘forum clause’ to the UK-US treaty. Forum is a principle that could apply in cross-border cases like Gary McKinnon’s, which Raab has been championing. Raab wants to end the ‘sort of haggling between prosecutors behind closed doors’ that governs extraditions at present, and reform the process by placing it before open court in Britain. He argues that numerous other countries enjoy such an arrangement with the US,

The furore surrounding the defence secretary is distracting attention from some stories that are threatening the coalition’s tranquillity. Benedict Brogan reports that the Health Bill is being amended out of existence by a cabal of Lib Dem peers, a campaigned that was mooted during the party conference season. The rebellion is apparently aggravating Number 10, which understood that Nick Clegg had secured his party’s support for the diluted programme which emerged after the recent “listening exercise”. Labour’s numerical superiority in the House of Lords means that ministers will have to be at their most mellifluous to bring the errant Lib Dems back to the fold, because Tory backbenchers are clear

‘Cat-flap’ is the story that just won’t go away. A report in today’s Guardian claims that the whole story may have been lifted from a speech made by Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party. One colleague of May’s tells the paper that “Not only has Ms May been caught out making up stories about the Human Rights Act for cheap laughs, she has been plagiarising her clap lines from the UK Independence party.” In the grand scheme of things, this is hardly the most serious charge. There’s just enough truth to the cat anecdote for May to have some ground to stand on and most Tories, understandably,

The Ken Clarke and Theresa May cat-flap has sparked up again this morning, with the Justice Secretary accusing the Home Secretary of using “laughable child-like examples” to attack the Human Right Act. In some ways, it’s hard to take a political row about a cat particularly seriously. But this back and forth between May and Clarke is actually exposing something very important: the Liberal Democrats are not the only brake on Tory radicalism. At the moment, lots of Tory ministers – up to and including the Prime Minister – like to imply that they’d be doing far more on Europe, immigration and the Human Rights Act if it wasn’t for