Immigration Control (Gross Human Rights Abuses) Bill [HL]

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 15th December 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, it is impossible to embark on the Second Reading of this Bill without explaining briefly the shocking backdrop to this effort to create legislation which will bar entry to this country to people who are gross abusers of human rights.

Sergei Magnitsky was a Russian lawyer who acted for William Browder and his company Hermitage Capital Management. Bill Browder’s refusal to bow to the demands of Mr Putin brought state attention to his door and episodes of harassment and intimidation followed. In June and October 2008 Sergei Magnitsky testified before the public investigative committee in Moscow against corrupt officials who were involved in the corporate raid on Hermitage’s offices there which had taken place the previous year.

For having the temerity to challenge the power of the Russian state, Sergei Magnitsky was arrested and detained on trumped-up charges. The conditions in which he was held in pre-trial detention were horrendous: freezing cells, open sewage running underfoot and beds in such short supply that prisoners were forced to sleep in them in shifts. Sergei Magnitsky became very ill but was denied proper medical treatment. His family’s entreaties were ignored. He was kept permanently handcuffed and regularly struck with rubber truncheons. He was eventually found dead in his cell with injuries which were consistent with a final and hellish beating. It beggars belief that four years after his death he was tried—I suppose they would call it a trial in your absence—and convicted, having been posthumously prosecuted by the Russian state. The authoritarianism of Putin’s state reaches beyond the grave. Of course, what it was really doing was seeking to justify the cruelty that had been exacted by it against a lawyer who dared to stand up for the rule of law.

Those who were responsible for this catalogue of abuse have since been honoured by the Russian state and have hugely enriched themselves through fraud, using Hermitage as a cover. Sergei’s death left a mother, a wife and two children to grieve, as well as a devoted friend and client who was not going to take what happened lying down. Bill Browder is the only financier and banker I know who has turned into a dedicated, full-on, full-time human rights activist. Since Sergei’s death William Browder has worked tirelessly to secure justice. He has campaigned against the impunity which is enjoyed by the officials who committed those gross acts of inhumanity. Knowing that Russia under Putin will never prosecute those who jailed, persecuted and ultimately killed Sergei, Browder has lobbied and campaigned and urged other nations to deny sanctuary to his killers and to create laws which will deny those criminals the enjoyment of travel, the use of ill-gotten gains and the anonymity that which allows them to escape ignominy.

So far, he has persuaded the United States and Canadian Governments to legislate, and it is time that we did this, too. This is about creating a Magnitsky law. Human rights violators like those who murdered Magnitsky exist in other nations, too. In Sudan, there are generals like Salah Gosh, who was identified by a UN panel of experts as an individual who should be subject to sanctions because of his role in the Darfur atrocities. There is another general, Major General Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein, who has outstanding warrants from the International Criminal Court for his role in crimes of inhumanity and war crimes, all relating to Darfur.

In the Congo we have seen grievous atrocities and the mass rape of women. In parts of the Middle East, too, criminals walk free and come regularly to this country. The generals in Myanmar also come to mind at this time. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights can identify and provide evidence on these violators of human rights. They should not be able to come here, sink their money into expensive properties, have their operations in our private hospitals, send their children to expensive private schools and live in our midst with impunity. Assets can now be frozen. This Bill is to deny them visas.

The US and Canadian Magnitsky Acts contain three distinctive elements that provide a template to be replicated the world over: asset freezes, travel bans and the explicit naming of the individuals whose conduct has led the Government to sanction them. At present, the UK has only the asset-freezing aspect of a Magnitsky law. This was introduced when the Criminal Finances Act, which had a “Magnitsky amendment” attached to it, received Royal Assent in April 2017—this year—having passed through Parliament in the preceding months. This amendment allows the Government to apply to the High Court to have the assets of suspected human rights violators frozen. This leaves the United Kingdom lacking a provision for travel bans and explicit naming procedures.

Under the Immigration Rules as presently constituted, the Home Secretary has a personal, non-statutory power to issue travel bans to individuals on the basis that their exclusion from the United Kingdom is conducive to the public good. Section 3(5)(a) of the Immigration Act 1971 also confers upon the Home Secretary discretionary power to deport anyone if it is deemed to be,

“conducive to the public good”.

I would like us to ask ourselves how often those powers have been used against human rights abusers. However, the current powers allow the Home Secretary to prevent the names of those who have been banned being published. The existence of a specific statutory provision—that is what is being sought here—aimed at sanctioning those involved in human rights abuses will both focus the attention of those applying that law and introduce greater transparency into the exercise of the power to impose visa bans.

The Foreign Affairs Committee published a report in 2011 on the FCO’s human rights work which asserted the value of publicising the names of those who are denied visas to enter the United Kingdom as a means of drawing attention to the UK’s determination to uphold high standards of human rights. Only a few days ago in this Chamber, I participated in a debate about human rights subsequent to Brexit, and we were given guarantees by the Minister from the Dispatch Box that human rights were a central consideration of this Government. Here is a way in which this can be expressed.

Dominic Raab, a Member of Parliament, argued cogently in a Commons debate in February 2015 that the introduction of specific statutory powers would give the public the right to know which individuals were being banned and which were not and would help travel bans act as an effective deterrent to others. We would soon see a chilling effect on the movement of people if they thought that there were going to be problems as they sought entry into this country. The Immigration Control (Gross Human Rights Abuses) Bill would introduce two missing elements of a fully fledged Magnitsky law: explicit powers to ban from the UK those responsible for, and complicit in, gross human rights violations; and transparent naming requirements for those who are banned.

Following the successful campaigns to pass Magnitsky Acts in the United States and Canada, the Russian Government have pursued William Browder through manifold routes, including abuse of Interpol’s international co-operation mechanisms by applying for Red Notice arrest warrants to secure his arrest and extradition to Russia. There have been five separate applications for Mr Browder’s arrest via these means, all of which have been rejected by Interpol.

But what this tells us is that Magnitsky laws are working. They are doing their job. That is why Russia is so determined to go after Bill Browder. One of the great complaints made about international human rights law is that it has insufficient teeth. This is how you give teeth to our international commitments. I strongly commend this Bill to the House and beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

I thank everyone who has participated in the debate in support of this Bill. Until the last speaker, we were united in saying that there is a need for it. This is not a question of simply protecting our borders from unpleasant persons; it is about sending a message to the world that there is no impunity for those who commit crimes of inhumanity. It is about making a statement to the world about our views with regard to human rights and those who violate them. I greatly regret that the Government do not see the potency of having such a Bill on the statute book.

I thank all those who have supported the purpose of this Bill. I feel privileged to be in this House, in particular because I have friends all around the Chamber. They sit on all the Benches and just now I can see them smiling at me, and I am lucky to have them. My friendships with people in this House are sometimes peppered with political differences on certain subjects, but we still enjoy great friendship. I want to make it known to the world that noble Lords are not speaking today because of that friendship but because one of the things we share is our concern for the rule of law and for justice. That is what has brought us all together today in support of the Bill. It is to say that justice matters and that it is important that we in the United Kingdom take a stance on human rights abuses around the world—and that, when we know they have happened, we should refuse entry to those who have been party to such egregious crimes. It is shaming on the Government that they are not prepared to take steps on this.

Of course I anticipated that it would be said that powers are already available to the Home Secretary, but we know that they are not being used. The noble Lord, Lord Trimble, referred to the failures on that front. It is not enough to talk about the fact that we are now introducing legislation to deal with those who commit fraud and so on because here we are talking about people who are slaughtering others and are prepared to kill in order to maintain their power. They are people who are prepared to rape and to sanction rape by others. That is what is so disgraceful about the failure of the Government to make clear to the world what the message is by having legislation of this kind.

I was very interested to hear about the kleptocracy tour described by the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner. Perhaps the noble Baroness will have to organise a bus to take people from this House around London in order to point out how dark money is infecting our city and our nation. People are coming here because they know that they can enjoy impunity for the crimes they have committed. I say to the Government that we should be ashamed; I say, “Poor show, Government, that you are not prepared to take this step”.

As for the business of publishing names, the argument for doing so is that those who have not been named would be put on alert. They would think immediately, “Am I going to be on that list tomorrow—or in a month’s time?”. It is unpersuasive to say that that is a reason for not publishing. We are providing cover for people with whom unfortunately we do business for reasons that are still not good enough. They have disgraceful pasts that they are covering up.

I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, who is a truly great lawyer, for his intervention. He raised the important issue of the standard of proof. What I referred to in my speech was that there is an independent United Nations panel that looks at those who have committed crimes and applies careful standards. Drawing up a list of those the panel considers have committed human rights breaches is not done merely on suspicion. We can also look to the International Criminal Court, which again draws up lists as part of its investigations. There are ways of doing this, but I accept that if, as I hope, we take the Bill further, we can look at ways to perfect this through amendments tabled in Committee.

I want to make it very clear to the Government that there is no suggestion of this being used against all citizens of a country because it falsely claims to be a democracy. That is not the purpose of the Bill. The purpose is to deal with the leadership in these places—people who sanction this kind of egregious crime. It in no way deals with people who are victims because they happen to live in a country where the leadership behaves in such terrible ways.

Mention was made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, of the possibility of something being done in the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill. I would urge that on the Government; it may be that they can find some part of that Bill that could be expanded to cover this—although I suspect that there will be unwillingness to do so. I have absolutely no doubt that this Bill can be perfected in Committee, but the purpose today is to say that there should be a Bill—one that makes it very clear to the world that we support the Magnitsky Acts that have come into being in the United States and Canada—not countries that casually introduce such legislation. The world needs to take steps to prevent such impunity.

Finally, I want to reiterate what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Trimble: we have seen that this is working. It has been a long time in coming. Over the years, we have talked about the ways in which international law can be an expression of good will but is often unenforceable; it is often impossible to implement our good intentions. This Bill is a way of doing that and a way of sending a message around the world: “You cannot come here. You will not be able to come here. You will not be able to go to the United States or Canada or Latvia or other nations that have signed up to this”. I think that it will spread. We want to be in there at the beginning, surely.

I thank noble Lords for supporting me and I beg to move.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.