European Convention on Human Rights

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Dominic Raab

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), although, unlike him, I welcome this debate and the serious way in which Ministers have identified and targeted the issue of article 8 undermining deportation, especially in relation to foreign national criminals, but also, increasingly, in relation to other elements of our immigration controls. It is worth putting the specific problem of article 8 into perspective. The European convention on human rights was never intended to have any extra-territorial application at all. It was certainly not intended to fetter deportation in any way. That much is very clear from the travaux préparatoires of the convention, all of which are in the public domain.

All of the restrictions have arisen through judicial legislation. Judges in Strasbourg and the UK have stretched existing rights to restrict our capacity to deport. That is contrary to both the separation of powers and basic democratic accountability. It is a serious constitutional matter. It is for elected Members of this House, not unaccountable judges, to decide whether British human rights need to be upgraded from the ones we signed up to in 1950. I should say that, for my part, as a matter of principle and as an elected representative, I support upholding the absolute prohibition on torture. Some will disagree, but I think it is wrong to deport anyone into the arms of a torturing state. On the question of what the right balance might be in terms of deportation and human rights, however, it must be for elected law-makers to decide whether we are going to raise the bar. Politicians can, perfectly respectably, disagree on where the bar should be set, but democrats cannot disagree that it is for legislators to strike that balance.

The fact is that the European Court of Human Rights has been legislating since the 1970s. In the notorious Chahal case in 1996 it was decided that Governments could not deport terrorist suspects if there was a substantial risk of torture in the country to which they were to be returned, but Strasbourg has gone much further. We see new fetters placed on deportation, most recently in the Abu Qatada case. The House will recall that Qatada’s deportation was barred by Strasbourg not because he faced the risk of torture—that was rejected—but because he might not get a fair trial in Jordan. That is a very dangerous precedent. It cannot be Britain’s responsibility to ensure that the justice systems of the world meet British or European standards. Again, it is not for Strasbourg to expand the fetters on deportation through judicial legislation.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Surely the hon. Gentleman is rather overreaching himself here. This country signed the UN convention against torture, as one of many countries that did so, and it therefore specifically becomes part of UK law and there is precedent for that. So deporting somebody to a regime that does not accept the convention against torture and therefore might torture them would be illegal under UK law, leaving aside what might happen to them when they were sent back.

[Mr Raab]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but he made so many leaps of legal logic that I could not possibly follow them all. The fact is that Strasbourg’s application of a bar on deportation when the individual is at risk of not having a fair trial in their home country is not set out in the UN convention against torture and is not in the European convention on human rights; this is something that Strasbourg, of its own whim, created. The number of appeals by Qatada, at home and in Strasbourg, makes a mockery of the rule of law.

That said, by far the biggest problem we face on deportation arises as a result of the new restrictions under article 8 and the right to family life. If we are being honest, we cannot blame that on Strasbourg, because these are home-grown restrictions; they are a direct result of judicial legislation by UK courts under the previous Government’s Human Rights Act, beyond even the high tide of judicial legislation in case law that has come from Strasbourg. As a result of the Immigration Minister’s direction, the Home Office has produced data showing that 400 foreign criminals a year defeat deportation orders on article 8 grounds. That represents 61% of all successful challenges to deportation orders and this is by far the biggest category.

These cases are not just statistics; they involve real lives. Many shocking cases have been reported in the news, and I wish to refer to just one, that of my constituent Bishal Gurung, a waiter from Esher who was brutally killed by a gang, with his body dumped mercilessly in the river Thames. The perpetrator was convicted of manslaughter and later released. He frustrated his deportation order by citing his right to family life. Let me make it clear: he had no wife, no children and no dependants, yet still he claimed that his family ties trumped the public interest in his deportation. The House can imagine how Bishal Gurung’s family felt about that, and we can imagine what they feel it says about British justice. Now I can at least tell them that the Government and the House of Commons are trying to tackle the problem and reform the law.

Extradition

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Dominic Raab

Thursday 24th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Raab]

I thank the hon. Gentleman; I find myself in the rare position of agreeing wholeheartedly with him.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Don’t worry, it won’t last.

[Mr Raab]

I am sure that is correct.

Going back to the Baker report and the issue of extradition under the European arrest warrant for the purposes of investigation rather than prosecution, the report effectively denies that EAWs are being used in cases where there is “insufficient evidence”. That is an astonishing conclusion; it is really remarkable. It is just one example of where the Baker review would have been assisted if it had interviewed the victims. It did not do that. However, under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), the Joint Committee on Human Rights did, and we gleaned as a result not just the legal technicalities and the operation but the human toll on those affected, particularly the innocent—but actually everyone. If we stand up for the principles of justice, we stand up for them across the board and the presumption of innocence is a cornerstone of British justice.

The Baker review should have heard the personal side of the trauma endured by Michael and his family. Instead, and this is really disappointing, Michael’s case merely gets a solitary mention in a footnote at the bottom of page 279. The review’s response to the broader issue of whether European arrest warrants are issued for investigations and not prosecutions is really to point out the blindingly obvious. It concludes that it should not happen under the terms of the framework decision, but that will be no comfort to the Turner family, because it does happen and it is happening and it will happen again unless we put a check in place.

Either we can and should amend the Extradition Act 2003 to make it explicit that extradition for investigation is barred or we need to pursue amendment of the framework decision itself. Given that we do so on other grounds, that would be a sensible course to take.

On other occasions, the EAW system has proved truly Kafkaesque for its victims. The case of Deborah Dark, a grandmother of two, best illustrates that. She gave evidence to our Committee. She was acquitted of drug offences in France more than 20 years ago. Without telling her, the French prosecutors appealed and a two-year jail sentence was imposed in her absence. Seventeen years later, on holiday in Turkey, she was stunned to be arrested at gunpoint. After a three-year legal ordeal, French investigators finally dropped the case. Traumatised, Mrs Dark told the Joint Committee:

“I had been walking around for over 20 years as a wanted person and I did not know.”

That major flaw would be remedied by the specific recommendations put forward by the Joint Committee, which considered all such cases and looked at the impact on the victims as well as taking advice on both law and policy from a range of non-governmental organisations.

There are many other victims, such as Edmond Arapi, and many other controversial cases, such as that of Babar Ahmad.