Terrorists and Human Rights: The Oddity

It seems a little strange that someone can be labelled as a terrorist but also be safe from the consequences of that label (deportation) under (my favourite area of law) the Human Rights Act.


Two Libyan Terror suspects are due to be released next week due to Justice John Mitting's recent decision in court. He decided that although the pair are terrorists, they cannot be sent back to  Colonel Gadafy's regime because of the risk that they would face torture.


One of the pair, a 24 year old student who was arrested last year after a foiled plot could not be charged because of our system which makes certain types of evidence inadmissable in a criminal court. He argued that he had a right to stay under Article 3  HRA which states:

"No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."  

The new coalition government that we seem to have been lumbered with (yes, I am not a fan) does not help the situation. The tories and I have one thing in common and that is our dislike for the Human Rights Act. They promised to scrap the act and replace it with a UK Bill of Rights, however not having an outright majority means they have agreed with the lib dems to investigate the issue via a new commission. Great progress.

The Special Immigrations Appeals Commission (SIAC) made the decision which will affect other foreign terror suspects residing in the UK. The pair in question, DD and AS, will be released on bail with special conditions like not being able to use laptops and mobile phones. The judge stated that although he is a terrorist and poses a threat to the UK it would be "on the cusp of legality" to keep them in detention after they won their appeal. He added that  there was "too little scope for human rights breaches to be deterred."

Their Lawyer (Gareth Peirce) is not happy and does not see this as a victory because the boys men have been labelled as terrorists internationally. Terrorists or not,  we can only sit and wait (hopefully not for a terrorist attack) to see the true effect of this ruling.