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The setting of a dangerous precedent

By John Hirst

The setting of a dangerous precedent

Last year, albeit yesterday, I reported that the European Court of Human Rights had issued an injunction preventing the UK from handing two Iraqi prisoners over to the Iraqi authorities.

This year, today, the Telegraph is reporting that the Defence Secretary, John Hutton, has defied the Court ruling and handed over the prisoners to the Iraqi authorities and thereby has breached their human rights.

In my view, the Iraqi war was illegally entered into by both the USA and the UK. Given this, Iraq was illegally occupied by US and UK armed forces. How the UK can legitimately put on trial two Iraqis for defending their homeland is beyond me.

John Hutton's obligation is not to placate the families of the two UK soldiers killed. Rather, it is to honour the UK's obligation to the European Convention and abide by the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. It is setting a dangerous precedent for a member of the Executive to overturn a decision of the Judiciary.

This should cause a conflict between the Defence Secretary, John Hutton, and Minister of Justice, Jack Straw. Perhaps the latter should make a public statement? Recently, some have claimed that we live in a police state. This was in response to Damian Green being arrested and his office being searched. The conduct of John Hutton is more akin to the military dictatorship of the Mugabe regime than that associated with a so-called liberal democracy.

Full post as published by prisonlawinsideout on January 01, 2009 (boomark / email).