European Convention on Human Rights: UK Membership Debate
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Lord Garnier
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European Convention on Human Rights: UK Membership
Lord Garnier Excerpts(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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The Attorney General
I think I have been very clear about what the Government’s policy is. The Home Secretary yesterday explained why the status quo is unacceptable. There is a difference between the convention that was drawn up in the 1950s and the interpretation given to it by judges in Strasbourg since that time. It is with the latter that we have an issue, not with the former.
Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)
One of the great advantages of the Attorney General’s coming to speak on behalf of the Home Secretary is that he is not enmeshed in the near-Trappist reticence that normally applies to a Law Officer. Given the freedom that the Home Secretary has kindly given him, will he invite her, next time he has a candid conversation with her, to explain something to the Turkish journalists, media organisations, police and judges, all of whom have been the subject of some pretty revolting treatment by the Turkish Government, and who look to the convention and to the Court for protection that they cannot get in their domestic courts and jurisdiction? Will he ask the Home Secretary to look those people in the face and say that our leaving the convention would not affect their rights or undermine their proper reliance on the standards of civilised behaviour, with which I thought we agreed?
The Attorney General
There is very little doubt that I have fundamentally abrogated my Trappist vows this morning. My right hon. and learned Friend makes the crucial point that there are real human rights abuses in the world today, and this country should stand four-square against those abuses. We should do so regardless of what international convention we may be part of and regardless of what Act we have passed. We should make that position clear, as I have no doubt responsible Governments in this country will do, now and in the future. It is important that the Foreign Office and, indeed, all parts of Government do their part to enhance human rights here and abroad.