Freeing Abu Qatada showed that Europe is the new judge of Britain’s national security
THE release on bail yesterday of the terror suspect Abu Qatada has generated headlines around the world. Once described by a Spanish judge as “Bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe”, Qatada is wanted in a host of countries on serious charges. Our own courts and Home Office regard him as a direct threat to our national security.
And yet Qatada has successfully avoided deportation for a decade, using every legal avenue to stall the process, and eventually taking his case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The flawed ruling blocking his deportation can still be appealed, but Qatada has already been freed on bail.
Meanwhile we must provide for his security and invest in surveillance to uphold his stringent bail conditions. This is on top of the considerable taxpayer expense that Qatada has incurred since he first arrived in the UK on a forged passport in 1993. Since 2002, the direct cost of dealing with Qatada following his arrest will be almost £2m; and more in future if he stays.
But the Qatada case is not really about the money. It raises profound questions about how Britain is governed, and what the cost to the UK is of being seen to be unable to uphold the security of the lawful majority who live and work here.
Because of the UK’s membership of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), our own courts can now be overruled by a ruling of a foreign court in Strasbourg. Even in the most serious cases where our national security is at stake, that institution is increasingly willing to do so.
That means that our own laws cannot stand if challenged directly by Strasbourg, even if our own supreme court and parliament take a different view. Unlike the supreme courts of Canada or Australia, our own highest judicial authority can be second-guessed by an international tribunal.
This erosion of judicial independence fosters a sense that Britain is no longer a state that can freely determine its own laws. Meanwhile human rights cases like Qatada erode public support for rights by turning them into a charter for the undeserving.
The British public sense that their government cannot exclude those who seek to cause them harm. As globalisation brings new reasons to open up trade and with it borders, states have to succeed in managing these flows in ways that welcome the good but repel the bad.
In recent years British immigration policy has failed to prevent some of the individuals it was intended to exclude from crossing our borders. Our legal system has not been much better at handling such cases once they are here. The right to remain in the UK on the grounds of the human right to a family life, in line with article eight of the ECHR, was hardly ever heard ten years ago – it was exercised in more than 400 cases last year.
A decade after 9/11, we live in an unstable world, with chronic threats that are hard to counter. Former mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani argues that democracies need to get better at building resilience while learning to live with risk. This has a cost. It makes security a bigger part of our lives. Queues at airports get longer and the cost of security goes up each year for businesses and their staff. Yet we make it even harder for ourselves when authorities cannot deal properly with clear dangers.
When known terrorists cannot be tried in open court they may be pursued for deportation for years. Even if charged and convicted here, they may radicalise others while in prison before being released prematurely. For those dangerous individuals that cannot be tried, or deported, or detained, our government appears helpless.
How does this make Britain look in the eyes of allied governments or overseas investors? Cases like Qatada are not just an expensive mess in legal and political terms – they exact a reputational cost. With Qatada – perhaps shortly to be followed by Abu Hamza – back on the streets again in time for the Olympics, how safe does the UK seem?
We need Britain to be open for business, not open for terror. We need well-policed borders that keep the criminal and the dangerous from arriving on our shores and immigration rules that can remove them promptly if required. We need domestic security measures – validated by our own courts – that keep the public safe, with politicians that can be held accountable and not overruled by supranational bodies issuing rulings from afar.
And we need our political representatives to appreciate that a country which cannot control its own affairs is not a country that can be safe, let alone one that can thrive economically in a globalised world.
Blair Gibbs is the head of crime and justice at Policy Exchange. www.policyexchange.org.uk