Blimpish || a Tory

This is apparently the view of the Amnesty International spokesman* Nicola Duckworth, discussing the Abu Qatada case.  In logical terms, it’s obviously true – human rights attach to humans, after all.  But I don’t believe in human rights as such; I think the real experience of anarchy (Somalia, Congo, Afghanistan, wherever) tells us that history is fairly indifferent to such notions.  Rights as we have them exist in particular contexts, created by civil practices and institutions which can also enforce them.

Viewed in those terms – that rights are rooted in our society, rather than our humanity – Ms Duckworth’s assertion seems to me to be wrong.  States not only can pick and choose which ‘people’ (i.e. humans) have the full panoply of civil rights, they are pretty much obliged to do so.  States have citizens, and the protection of those citizens, and the exercise of the civil rights which they enjoy as such, is one of its primary duties.  Protection of those citizens is necessary from enemies within (i.e. criminals and traitors) and from enemies without (i.e. aggressor states or terrorists); the first group have to be dealt with through due respect for their rights; the second group only through respect for the rules we consent to for the use of force.

Abu Qatada was allowed to stay in this country as a guest; but he has no right to remain here.  As a host, we expect our guests to meet up to certain basic standards of behaviour, and applauding attacks on our country and counselling other people to join in such attacks, do not seem to me to meet them.  What right he did have to remain was granted by the British government’s own administrative decision-making process; and what the State giveth, the State taketh away – once that same decision-making process decides that he has outstayed his welcome, then he must go.

The question raised by Abu Qatada’s defenders (including his oddly-named hasn’t-met-an-enemy-of-the-state-she-didn’t-like lawyer Gareth Peirce) is whether the State has the obligation to give a non-citizen, who has made himself undesirable through his own conduct, the right to stay in our country for as long as deportation to their own land might result in an unfair trial and potential mistreatment.  The Law Lords said that the use of torture-based evidence does not produce an unfair trial as such; and the Jordanians’ use of it is their business as a matter of justice – the British government can hardly be expected to offer residence to all criminal suspects from countries using torture (we’re already densely populated, after all).

This seems eminently sensible to me; as it goes, I don’t accept the idea that the British government is responsible for making up for all of the inequities of other states.  The world is a pretty chaotic place, and our privilege to live under the rule of law does not give us the obligation to offer its benefits to all and sundry.  The idea that anybody facing trouble upon their return to their country (often because of their own previous conduct) therefore has an unconstrained right to stay in this country, regardless of their celebrating the efforts of our declared enemies, and seeking to sow unrest among other people, can only mean our becoming a safe haven to all of the world’s Bad Guys.  Not a good plan.**

* I am impressed that the BBC and/or Amnesty International styled her as ’spokesman’ rather than ’spokesperson’ – gender-neutral terms are just so hollow, aren’t they?  After all, being a Chairman is authoritative – but Chairs just get sat on.

** Since the judgement on the administrative imprisonment of the Qatada and his like at Belmarsh, if the Law Lords hadn’t accepted the right of the Government to deport such people with only basic safeguards in place, it would’ve effectively disarmed them against any foreign terrorist operating on the edge of the law.