When the monochrome horrors of the camps shocked cinema audiences in Britain, when stories of brutality, atrocities and the iron boot of authoritarianism trampling democracy became current, the UK was foremost in imposing on the wayward peoples of the world a new reminder of the duties that governments and societies owe to their people. Following the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations (the name originally of the alliance fighting the Axis powers), the Council of Europe adopted the European Convention, together with a court to enforce it.
The ECHR and the ECtHR are not EU institutions but those of the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe includes 47 nations and 820 million people; the EU only includes 27 of those nations and 426m of those citizens. However, the ECtHR has fallen into the same pernicious power-grab using the same pernicious method as the EU - the notion of 'dynamic' law and regulation. You sign up to potatoes, and within a few years they have changed it to include tomatoes, oranges, bananas and plums. The 'they' is of course unelected judges - and Ld Sumption featured the 'mission creep' effect in his Reith lectures last year;
Article 8 protects the human right to private and family life, the privacy of the home and personal correspondence. It was designed as a protection against the surveillance state in totalitarian regimes. But the Strasbourg Court has developed it into what it calls a principle of personal autonomy. Acting on this principle, it has extended Article 8 so that it potentially covers anything that intrudes upon a person’s autonomy unless the Court considers it to be justified.
Now, it will be obvious that most laws seek, to some degree, to intrude on personal autonomy. They impose standards of behaviour which would not necessarily be accepted voluntarily. This may be illustrated by the vast range of issues which the Strasbourg Court has held to be covered by Article 8. They include the legal status of illegitimate children, immigration and deportation, extradition, criminal sentencing, the recording of crime, abortion, artificial insemination, homosexuality and same sex unions, child abduction, the policing of public demonstrations, employment and social security rights, environmental and planning law, noise abatement, eviction for non-payment of rent and a great deal else besides. All of these things have been held to be encompassed in the protection of private and family life.
None of them is to be found in the language of the convention. None of them is a natural implication from its terms. None of them has been agreed by the signatory states. They are all extensions of the text which rest on the sole authority of the Judges of the Strasbourg Court. This is, in reality, a form of non-consensual legislation.It is not that we have abandoned any of the fundamental rights for which our fathers fought and died, any of the rights laid out in the convention of 1950, but that the ECtHR has assumed an authority that usurps democracy. These are not decisions for judges - they are decisions for voters, and for the ballot box. Only ending this slow-motion power grab will restore democracy.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus (the disease it causes is called Covid-19) has already caused nations to look to themselves. France and Germany have banned the export of masks, gloves, alcohol sanitiser and other preventative materials - banned export to other EU nations. Shengen is about to be suspended and national borders manned again - this time with (pointless) temperature probes replacing the Tommy guns. At times of war and plague, nations reassert themselves, and people demand that their own governments look to their interests, not to those of a remote federation of unelected apparatchiks.
Update - GBP - EUR pair
===================
For anyone looking for an explanation of why the €/£ rate has gone from 1.204 last week to 1.146 today - it's the carry trade, not us, and it will work itself out - as Zerohedge has it
If a carry trade unwind does cause the euro to surge uncontrollably against the dollar towards the $1.2-1.3 zone, the impact on the fragile eurozone economy could be devastating. For despite the euro’s weakness against the dollar, other countries have also been pursuing weak currency polices. As a result, the euro effective exchange rate (ie measuring the euro against a basket of currencies) is much stronger than the headline euro/$ exchange rate suggests. A surge in the euro from current levels as the carry trade unwinds could crush the eurozone economy. Indeed it could threaten the euro’s very existence.
| 08/03/20 | ||
| EU/EEA and the UK | Cases | Deaths |
| Italy | 5883 | 233 |
| Germany | 847 | 0 |
| France | 716 | 10 |
| Spain | 430 | 5 |
| United Kingdom | 206 | 2 |
| Netherlands | 188 | 1 |
| Belgium | 169 | 0 |
| Sweden | 161 | 0 |
| Norway | 147 | 0 |
| Austria | 104 | 0 |
| Greece | 66 | 0 |
| Iceland | 53 | 0 |
| Denmark | 31 | 0 |
| Czech Republic | 26 | 0 |
| Portugal | 21 | 0 |
| Ireland | 19 | 0 |
| Finland | 19 | 0 |
| Romania | 13 | 0 |
| Croatia | 12 | 0 |
| Slovenia | 12 | 0 |
| Estonia | 10 | 0 |
| Hungary | 7 | 0 |
| Poland | 6 | 0 |
| Luxembourg | 3 | 0 |
| Slovakia | 3 | 0 |
| Malta | 3 | 0 |
| Bulgaria | 2 | 0 |
| Latvia | 2 | 0 |
| Lithuania | 1 | 0 |
| Liechtenstein | 1 | 0 |
| Total | 9161 | 251 |
29 comments:
I reckon that the same goes for the biggie, which in my view is Corpus Juris, we are not used to the tradition of being slaves to the state from birth. It might seem like just a form of words and that effectively is no different to the tradition of habeas corpus, but the former makes us (at least technically) slaves, whilst the former represents freedom.
It is also that coded system which is used to justify the influence of judges, who are there to interpret that code, and since it was an imposition as opposed to something which grew organically. The recent acts of Blair in creating his Supreme Court in the same form as EU courts, full of politicians, making political decisions.
Alf Denning RIP.
If the ECHR wasn't closely linked to the EU, the Kommissars wouldn't be using the negotiations of a trade treaty to demand that we remain under its control post Brexit. They are, because they know full well that the ECHR works in lockstep with the EU to advance the power and control of those they call the European Elite.
The only people in the UK who will howl with rage about the UK resiling from the Convention are the pro-EU "usual suspects:" Blair's army of Human Rights lawyers (including Starmer); the Judiciary who will be seeing their wings clipped; some MPs; and many of the out-of-touch parasites in the House of Frauds and the broadcast media.
Canada, Aus and NZ all have Human Rights Acts, which are almost identical to ours, and they have no problems at all. If Vladimir Putin is happy for every Russian to enjoy all their rights under ECHR, as are the Serbian and Turkish governments, then why ever do the English Right think that the sixty-seven million British should lose all fourteen or more of theirs? This is the only European country where such a thing could be said and not be considered to be utterly preposterous. If offenders need to be expelled, then ECHR has recently clarified for Russia that they can do this. So all that is needed is to amend our Human Rights Act, and to qualify the right to a family life along those lines. We do not all need to lose our property protection, right to a fair trial, free speech, privacy etc., but I think that that is actually the real goal for the Right. Otherwise they would just do as described.
Think courtiers. In elaborating their roles and interactions before the Emperor to secure patronage and preferment they lose track of their original purpose.
The ECtHR is perhaps an extreme example of this because the very nature of the Court is to ensure that more and more is pulled into their grasp. Perhaps in an ideal world there would also be a European Court of Public Rights which aims to reduce the 'findings' of the ECtHR to a sensible basis for all.
"English right". Your use of this phrase says it all.
How exactly can " the right to a family life" be codified in law and how exactly can a supranational court "guarantee" it?
Correct me if I'm wrong here but I don't recall ANYONE bemoaning any lack of 'human rights' pre the ECHR and us joining the EU.
The Police and Courts even held some respect in the eyes of the public back then. Now?
So, what did we get 'for our money'? Open borders. Terrorist and criminal 'rights' etc.
And can anyone tell me how/why Assange is still incarcerated if the ECHR has any sway?
Bargain.
(/sarc for JPMs benefit).
JPM - as I wrote, we have not retreated from any of the rights we signed up to in 1950. Just the additions that have been tacked-on by the ECtHR without a democratic mandate. Personally, I'd be quite happy for a new Bill of Rights that duplicates the provisions of the 1950 ECHR.
From the last paragraph I'm guessing you read AE-P in the Telegraph.
As you know, we're about 12 days behind Italy. Still, I suppose you can always take the Craig Murray approach of "everyone has to die sometime."
Amazing brass neck from the ill-smelling Cheese. Mouth fighter for socialism --a death cult that has so far murdered 150 million people--whines about his fantasy of what the "English Right" are about.
What we need to be about is destroying the wannabe globo elite--starting with all of its Marxist Orc skirmishers like Cheese.
No, getting rid of the ECHR is a very bad idea, too much power to our Prime Minister.
Remember Hillsborough, time and again we had a fully fudged enquiry, lies in effect. Finally Mrs May was forced into a full enquiry or face the ECHR. She was suitably cowed and ran the Hillsborough enquiry - far far too late.
Our Parliament will face further stresses and failures over the coming years and will continue to cheat, lie and wriggle out of responsibilities. For our own security we need a backstop - the ECHR.
Be warned, dark forces are at work to weaken the rights of ordinary English people under the guise of escaping Europe, a phoney prospectus, don't be fooled.
This has been tried before and failed - thanks to Parliament - because the Tories would not guarantee to parallel the Right To Peaceful Enjoyment Of Possessions.
What some of the more reasonable commenters here want, and what the Tories are now planning are two different things, I surmise.
That provision, ArticIe One of ProtocoI One of ECHR, protection of property, is what stops lenders from grabbing the equity in your home if they repossess it - as happens in the US under Foreclosure. It also stops the spouses of those in care from being thrown out of their homes and these from being sold to pay for that care. It stops the bankruptcy courts from taking your company pension pot - as happened to the privatised car workers and many others - to defray creditors as they once did too. That, along with right to privacy and to a family life, stops divorce courts from running riot with peoples assets and childcare, as they did in the 1980s and early 1990s. Precisely these are what the Right want to reverse, I think. Whether a TV-licence-dodger in prison has the vote or not is pretty immaterial in comparison, eh?
JPM - I genuinely cannot understand your objection. You cannot be evicted in the UK for a civil debt as long as you pay your rent or mortgage - nor do bailiffs have any right to force entry. Your tools of your trade cannot be seized.
If you want people to have the right to stay in dwellings without paying rent or loan payments, that's plain crazy - legalised squatting. No sane government would enact such provisions.
If you default on your mortgage and are evicted, your dwelling is no longer protected - and the value of the residual asset can be used in settlement of civil debts, under contracts to which you willingly signed-up. Fair dos, I'd say.
Jim - such matters are not the business of supranational authorities over which we have no jurisdiction or democratic control. Such issues are matters for the ballot box, for the courts through judicial review and for parliament, both in the chamber and in committee. We have adequate domestic recourse and safeguards without giving our democracy away to unaccountable bodies.
Raedwald, you just choose not to see it.
All those legal conventions that you describe are directly protected by ECHR, and so long as the UK remains signatory then no government, nor parliament, nor court can rob you of them.
Foreclosure as in the US is COMPLETELY different to "repossession" or Possession as it is correctly known in England.
In the first, the title itself is transferred to the lender, so he gets equity and all, even if you only owed a single cent. In the second, the lender can take control of the property to redeem arrears and costs but no more. The surplus MUST go to the mortgagor, to the occupier.
I take it that you don't care about millions losing their pension savings at all then either?
JPM - those protections were enshrined in English law long, long before th ECHR was even though of. And they'll remain in law long after the ECHR is gone. You're plain wrong on this.
And you can't hold on to your savings if you owe them to someone.
Any law or convention in UK can be overturned by an Act of Parliament, unless that is prevented by international treaty.
These flimsy, here-today-swept-aside-tomorrow traditions that you mention did not prevent the grossest of abuses, leaving millions penniless, until the Human Rights Act stopped them.
For one thing ordinary people could not afford the risk of fighting them in Court.
What is it that you claim, that ECHR prevents the country from doing which is so essential?
Maybe your specific grievances could be addressed without making the country even more of a pariah state than it already is?
Come on, what are they?
As I say, ECHR has already ruled for Russia, that a criminal's right to a family life does NOT prevent his deportation. These rights are not necessarily absolute, and countries may balance them reasonably.
That's that then, now, what else? Come on?
I reckon the majority of voters in the UK would rather put their trust in our homegrown, domestic judges than a bunch of strangers in Strasburg intent on sucking power to themselves.
Oh. They have done. Twice.
This country hardly needs lessons from continental Europe with regards to human or any other rights which centuries of separate history surely shows.
We pull out of the ECHR and this country degenerates to French/German/Spanish etc historical norms? Give me a reason why anybody.
Little seems to have changed, from the time of Tom Paine's wry observation that the English would be willing to fight to the death for the cretinous right to have no rights.
Closer to home, I see that Labour, by their suspension of Trevor Philips, ex EHRC chair, have confirmed that uncritical pro-Muslims in the party have indeed seized considerable power.
So that's fairly high up the to do list of the new leader on taking up the reins then.
At least it starts the discussion, but well said Khalid Mahmoud in Philips' defence.
JPM said @ 08:33
'If Vladimir Putin is happy for every Russian to enjoy all their rights under ECHR, as are the Serbian and Turkish governments, then why ever do the English Right think that the sixty-seven million British should lose all fourteen or more of theirs?'
Out of curiosity is there a Welsh or Scots Right? Is this another display of your bitterness toward my ethnic group because we won't just 'get with the program'? Fascinating how a non-white ethnic group can be showered with praise when it demonstrates a modicum of self-determination and yet when a white one like the English does it there is hell to pay.
Steve
The troll is just using the same moronic "argument" he always does: The EU, EHCR ( or whatever) is the ONLY source of rights, regulations etc. Leave and we have no rights, regulations whatsoever.
Its just trolling at its most wilful and desperate.
I'll ask JPM again - where's the ECHR when it comes to Assange?
You claim the British system is open to corruption without the safe guards of the ECHR but in the case of Assange it is clearly as corrupt as any British Court or system of institutions when it comes to looking after their own interests.
The UK does not have a written Constitution beyond saying that Parliament is the law.
That means that its people have NO rights capable of withstanding an Act Of Parliament against them, other than those which are protected by international treaties for so long as the UK remains signatory, no.
The common law is defenceless against Parliament too, as is Equity.
The position is completely different in the US, in France, in Russia, in Scandinavia, etc. etc. etc.
I am English and white, incidentally.
It's not just a question of what rights people have, but also the durability and resilience of them. Those in this country are, in principle, amongst the flimsiest in the world.
Dave, it's up to people to bring cases under HR law. They don't need to go to Strasbourg, that is what HRA1998 was for.
ECHR has no police force operating across borders nor a prosecution service. Do you think that it should?
I think that Assange's detention looks to be unlawful, but no doubt his lawyers have been through things quite thoroughly. He's probably being held under some misused anti-terrorist law yet again for all I know.
He certainly should not be extradited IMO, especially since the woman responsible for the young motorcyclist's death seems to be quite immune in the US, what?
"I am English and white, incidentally"
So why do you have such a pathological hatred of everybody else who is English and white and the country these people built?
JPM said @ 19:05
'I am English and white, incidentally.'
Then you'll know the Anglo-Saxon for go away in short jerky movements.
Steve
The ECHR is cockrot which has "exceptions" for all of the so-called rights it "endows"---enabling scummy states to negate all of them.
Cheese as ever is a liar. Time the creep was banned Radders.
What a despairing little bunch of wet lettuces we have here.
No, the laws against rape, murder and theft are not 100% effective.
Your what-passes-for-reason would mean scrapping all the laws against them, and with them the police, courts and CPS.
You've nothing.
When you think the depths of trolling have been reached, you come along and manage to dig a bit deeper.
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