Even Labour is starting to twig that the ECHR is insane

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has long baffled and angered the British public. Hardly a week goes by, it seems, without an activist judge, armed with the convention, decreeing that a dangerous, violent criminal must be spared deportation and should remain in the UK. Such decisions are becoming so egregious that even Keir Starmer’s Labour government, which has repeatedly stated its fealty to the convention, has started to call for reform.

Speaking at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg this week, UK justice secretary Shabana Mahmood argued that the ECHR is ‘eroding’ the British public’s faith in the rule of the law, especially for the role it plays in preventing the British authorities from deporting foreign criminals. The ECHR ‘too often protects those who break the rules, rather than those who follow them’, she said. The human-rights framework is ‘used in ways that frustrate deportation even where there are serious concerns about credibility, fairness and risk to the public’, she continued, adding: ‘It’s not right that dangerous prisoners’ rights are given priority over others’ safety and security.’

A recent pair of cases illustrate this all too clearly. Two men, both living illegally in the UK, are wanted in their native Brazil for murder and rape respectively. Marlon Martins Dos Santos was sentenced to 14 years in prison for ‘repeatedly raping’ a five-year-old child, but then fled to the UK before he was jailed. Nicolas Gomes de Brito is wanted back home for allegedly ordering the murder of a rival gang member. Yet Brazil’s attempts to extradite both men have failed. Why? Because British judges ruled it would breach Article 3 of the ECHR. The judges concluded, for reasons only they can truly fathom, that being sent to jail in Brazil would breach the conventions rules against ‘torture and inhumane treatment’.

Unfortunately, the cases of Dos Santos and de Brito are not a quirk or aberration. Indeed, they are very much the rule. Last year, a Bangladeshi man convicted of murdering his wife escaped deportation on the same Article 3 grounds. The judge found that because he had ‘converted’ to Christianity, he would be at risk if he was deported to Bangladesh. Never mind the risk he might pose to Britons.

Or take the case of Xhoni Leka, an Albanian drug boss who operated a cannabis factory in Cumbria. In March, it was reported that an immigration judge halted his deportation because it would deprive his daughter of a ‘male role model’. This, it was argued, would breach Article 8 of the ECHR, which guarantees one’s ‘right to family life’.

Such is the bewildering and disturbing nature of these decisions that they now rival the Beckhams and Meghan Markle for column inches in the tabloids. Take the Albanian money launderer who avoided deportation because his son dislikes foreign ‘chicken nuggets’. Or the Jamaican drug dealer who was allowed to remain in the UK because he has a child who identifies as trans. There is no end to the absurdities served up by the judiciary when the ECHR comes into play.

Some cases are nothing to laugh about. Recently, it was reported that Pakistani national Qari Abdul Rauf, who in 2012 was jailed for raping and trafficking a 15-year-old girl in Rochdale, managed to avoid deportation because he was able to invoke his ECHR ‘right to family life’. While such a right may sound all well and good on paper, in the hands of Britain’s immigration judges, it has effectively become a paedophiles’ charter, making it near impossible to deport clearly dangerous criminals.

Depressingly, Mahmood’s plans to ‘reform’ the ECHR are almost certain to come to nothing. Not least because a strong contingent of Labour MPs will fight tooth and nail to preserve what they consider to be the sanctity of international law and ‘human rights’. Let’s not forget that only a few weeks ago, attorney general and Starmer ally Lord Hermer told the Royal Institute of International Affairs that people who want to leave, or reform, the ECHR are essentially just like the Nazis.

Of course, it is true that the ECHR’s postwar framers were informed by the horrors of fascism and Communism. But it should be clear they did not intend for their convention to codify the ‘right’ of Albanian drug bosses, Brazilian paedophiles, Bangladeshi murderers or the leaders of Pakistani grooming gangs to remain in the UK indefinitely.

Mahmood’s comments are welcome, but they don’t go nearly far enough. She would have been better off telling the Council of Europe that the UK wants to quit. Still, when even Labour’s justice secretary thinks the ECHR has gone off the rails, there is cause to hope its days are numbered.

Hugo Timms is an editorial assistant at spiked.