BETTER SHRED THAN DEAD:

I'm ready to rip up Human Rights Act, declares Cameron (Graeme Wilson, 13/05/2006, Daily Telegraph)

David Cameron revealed yesterday that he is ready to tear up the Human Rights Act amid growing public concern that it is being exploited by foreign criminals.

If he wins the next general election, the Conservative leader will order a review of the law introduced by Labour eight years ago and rewrite the legislation if necessary.

However, if it becomes clear that it was not possible to improve the Act through amendments, Mr Cameron is prepared to abolish it.

The Tory leader's aides conceded last night that even if the party scrapped the Act, Britain would still be bound by the European Convention of Human Rights.

An excellent start, but until he's ready to scrap the EU treaties that infringe on British sovereignty he's not going to be a great PM.

MORE:
Freedom's best guarantor is a sovereign parliament (Daily Telegraph, 13/05/2006)

On Thursday, this newspaper called for the Human Rights Act to be scrapped. On Friday, David Cameron followed suit. Our editorial, like the Conservative leader's declaration, was prompted by the ruling that nine Afghan hijackers who came to Britain by diverting a plane to Stansted could not be repatriated - despite their crime, and despite the displacement of the Taliban regime from which they claimed to be fleeing. But ours is no knee-jerk campaign.

We have been calling for years for Britain to reassert its control over who settles here. We have long argued that, in order to secure this goal, it is necessary to scrap the Human Rights Act, derogate from parts of the European Convention on Human Rights and withdraw from the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees. [...]

The Human Rights Act, like the convention itself and, indeed, the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights, effects a massive transfer of power from the legislature to the judiciary. The rights themselves are unexceptionable - but we contract out their interpretation to people over whom we have no control.

Most of the freedoms promised in these charters could also be found in, say, the Soviet constitution; but, when our elected politicians are powerless, there is no way of ensuring their enforcement. The best guarantor of freedom is a sovereign parliament - which is another way of saying that it is up to us all to safeguard our rights. As Disraeli put it: "To the liberalism they profess, I prefer the liberties we enjoy."

Actually, a sovereign parliament is a pretty crappy guarantor, which is why they've so much less than we.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 13, 2006 9:07 AM