Posted on 08/16/2005 5:29:38 AM PDT by GMMAC
London Free Press
Tue, August 16, 2005
Parliaments must take back power
By Rory Leishman
In announcing a 12-point plan of stepped-up security in Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair gave a not-so-subtle warning to judicial activists in the House of Lords: "Should legal obstacles arise, we will legislate further, including, if necessary, amending the Human Rights Act."
In December, the Law Lords, Britain's equivalent of the Supreme Court of Canada, struck down a provision in Britain's 2001 Anti-terrorism Act that empowered the home secretary to place foreign nationalists suspected of terrorist links in preventive detention if they could not be deported because they were liable to be tortured or killed in their home country. In the opinion of the court, this anti-terrorist measure violated the guarantee the Human Rights Act that "everyone has the right to liberty and security of person."
As a result of the ruling, the Blair government was forced to release eight foreign terrorists suspects. Among them was Abu Qatada, a Jordanian who has been described by Britain's Special Immigration Appeals System as "a truly dangerous individual" who is "at the centre in the U.K. of terrorist activities associated with al-Qaida."
Speaking for the majority of the court in this case, Lord Hoffmann said: "The real threat to the life of the nation . . . comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these."
Would Lord Hoffmann care to repeat that statement in the aftermath of the July 7 terrorist strikes on London? Blair doesn't think so.
Nonetheless, he has served notice on judicial activists such as Hoffmann that his government will not tolerate any more judicial second-guessing of the judgment of Parliament that a sweeping package of new anti-terrorist laws is urgently required to authorize the deportation of Islamic extremists such as Qatada, the closing of mosques that foment extremism, the outlawing of radical Muslim groups that promote terrorism, and the screening of extremist foreign imams prior to their entry into Britain.
In taking this stance, Blair has the complete backing of Conservative party Leader Michael Howard. In a column in the Daily Telegraph last week, Howard said: "Given that judicial activism seems to have reached unprecedented levels in thwarting the wishes of Parliament, it is time, I believe, to go back to first principles."
Among those first principles is the supremacy of Parliament. Howard observed: "Ever since the Glorious Revolution established its supremacy, Parliament has made the law and the judiciary has interpreted it."
Today, that is no longer the case. In interpreting the Human Rights Act, the Law Lords have assumed authority to decide if Parliament has adopted means proportionate to the ends of an act.
The Supreme Court of Canada has done the same in interpreting our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Such judicial intrusions into legislative authority do not sit well with Howard, who said: "I believe that these are essentially matters for Parliament -- for elected representatives, accountable directly to the people -- to decide. But, thanks to the Human Rights Act, the judges have been given the right to second-guess Parliament."
In the process, British judges have gravely undermined national security in Britain. "We have repeatedly drawn attention to the inadequacies of our asylum system and the lack of proper security at our ports," lamented Howard. "And we have called for the Human Rights Act to be reviewed and, if it cannot be properly amended, repealed."
The situation in Canada is no less perilous. Thanks to the 1985 Singh ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada, anyone who lands on Canadian soil now has the same legal rights as any Canadian citizen. As a result, the government of Canada can no longer prevent manifestly bogus refugee claimants such as Ahmed Ressam -- the millennium bomber -- from entering Canada. Likewise, the Justice Department cannot secure the expeditious deportation of even convicted terrorists.
Yet neither our prime minister nor the leader of the Opposition has ever suggested that Parliament should invoke the notwithstanding clause of the Constitution to safeguard Canada's anti-terrorism laws from any more judicial second-guessing. What is the matter with our elected leaders?
Unlike the British, it seems that we Canadians are so mesmerized by the charter and subservient to the courts that we have lost the will to govern ourselves.
Write Rory at The London Free Press, P.O. Box 2280, London, Ont. N6A 4G1
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Way to go Blair!
What part of 'pussy-whipped lickspittles' does the writer not understand?
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