The Conservatives want to prevent suspected terrorists, criminals, and illegal immigrants from using human rights as a protection against deportation. In the time honoured Tory tradition of insisting that some people are more equal than others, in a stroke they have turned their backs on the principle of universality in human rights – a powerful idea that lends protection to LGBT rights activists in Africa, empowerment to girls seeking education in places like Pakistan, justice for victims of rape here in the United Kingdom, and support for literally billions of others.
It might seem easier to just let people we like enjoy human rights and deny them to anyone who is perceived as controversial. Suspected terrorists, criminals, and illegal immigrants are hardly the most well-loved groups in the country, and so they are an easy target when we get into discussions about who deserves human rights and who does not.
But have we forgotten that Gary McKinnon, the British computer hacker diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, was an alleged criminal and perceived threat to the United States’ national security? In 2002, Gary’s obsession with hacking into US government computer systems to try to uncover evidence of UFOs attracted an extradition order from the US and the threat of a 70-year jail sentence.
Eventually, after a 10 year legal and diplomatic battle, the home secretary relied on human rights protections to deny the American request to hand Gary over. Her argument depended on Article 3 of the Human Rights Act, which protects against inhuman or degrading treatment. Such were the concerns about the impact of extradition on Gary’s mental health.
Without human rights, Gary would be languishing in an American jail or, worse still, would have taken his own life. But his case is only one among hundreds where human rights have been used to legitimately protect people from extradition or deportation when there have been strong grounds to do so.
In practice, we do not insist on the universality of human rights because we want to protect some abstract idea. We do so because we know that even unpopular people can sometimes be innocent, and that denying human rights to some minorities is a slippery slope. Today the Tories want to deny human rights to criminals, but tomorrow will it be workers and trade unions? Or perhaps student activists? The universality of human rights stops people from drawing the line on the basis of prejudice, and ultimately ensures we all enjoy protection.
Labour has adopted a sensible policy, outlined by shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan, to issue guidelines for British judges to ensure they comply with existing rules allowing them to disagree with judgements from the European Court of Human Rights. This will allow them room for manoeuvre in cases involving terrorists, criminals, and illegal immigrants, but also in all other cases.
It is vital now that Labour continues to defend the universality of human rights. There are myriad ways in which human rights protect people across the UK, as laid out in our new guide for Labour activists. Labour can draw on these to show that human rights are there to benefit everyone. Sometimes that means unpopular people will draw on human rights too, but mostly it means they can never be taken away from those who need them most.
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Andrew Noakes is director of the Labour Campaign for Human Rights. He tweets @andrew_noakes
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