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part of plans to save ?15 million. Outside sources coming up at nine, | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
but now, it is time for HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk, I am Stephen | :00:00. | :00:17. | |
Sackur. Britain proudly claims to be the original land of liberty, King | :00:18. | :00:23. | |
John had his authoritarian wings clipped, by his noblemen in the | :00:24. | :00:26. | |
Magna Carta, eight centuries ago. And the rest, the rest is history. | :00:27. | :00:31. | |
But how healthy are Britain's liberties today, for the past five | :00:32. | :00:36. | |
decades, my guest, Lord Lester has been one of the country's foremost | :00:37. | :00:41. | |
illegal champions of human rights and judicial independence. After | :00:42. | :00:45. | |
scoring some famous victories, why is he sounding so alarmed? | :00:46. | :01:00. | |
Lord Lester, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. The past 50 years or | :01:01. | :01:23. | |
more, you have been fighting the good fight for human rights in the | :01:24. | :01:26. | |
UK hands as I have just said you had scored some famous victories, it | :01:27. | :01:31. | |
seems to me that yours is a story of relative success, why are you | :01:32. | :01:35. | |
sounding so agitated, so worried about liberties in Britain today? | :01:36. | :01:42. | |
Because although we have achieved much in 50 years, much that we have | :01:43. | :01:47. | |
achieved is threatened. And I am very worried about that and | :01:48. | :01:51. | |
therefore I have written a book in order to encourage young people, to | :01:52. | :01:56. | |
fight for what we have fought for. That means understanding the past, | :01:57. | :02:01. | |
it also means understanding what we have achieved and understanding what | :02:02. | :02:04. | |
we still need to fight. Quite you talk about the book, the book is | :02:05. | :02:10. | |
about five ideas, to fight for. That is really what it is for. These | :02:11. | :02:14. | |
ideas are human rights, equality, free speech, privacy and the rule of | :02:15. | :02:18. | |
law. Many people watching this programme around the world who will | :02:19. | :02:22. | |
think that on all of those five criteria, Britain frankly compared | :02:23. | :02:25. | |
to most countries in the world, scores pretty well? Well, I think | :02:26. | :02:34. | |
that is probably true. But it doesn't mean to say, that in | :02:35. | :02:38. | |
Britain, those ideas are not under threat. Because they are. For | :02:39. | :02:44. | |
example. I took 30 years to get the Human Rights Act. The Human Rights | :02:45. | :02:50. | |
Act is not like the constitutions of most democracies in the world, that | :02:51. | :02:54. | |
are written which allow judges to strike down laws that are | :02:55. | :03:00. | |
unconstitutional. Instead, we use the European Convention on human | :03:01. | :03:04. | |
rights which is a treaty, and we don't allow allow judges to strike | :03:05. | :03:07. | |
down laws, we do something more subtle, we allow the judges to | :03:08. | :03:11. | |
declare that Acts of Parliament are not compatible with European rights, | :03:12. | :03:17. | |
and it is for the government and parliament to decide what to do | :03:18. | :03:21. | |
about it. What is now under threat, is that David Cameron's government, | :03:22. | :03:26. | |
the present government have threatened in the manifesto, and I | :03:27. | :03:33. | |
guess a beyond, to tear up the Human Rights Act, and produce a British | :03:34. | :03:37. | |
bill of rights. And they have said that they will review whether we | :03:38. | :03:42. | |
should be party to the European Convention on human rights. That | :03:43. | :03:46. | |
pleases studio democracies, dictators, for example Russia. You | :03:47. | :03:53. | |
are racing ahead like a wild horse. I am going like a torture. They're | :03:54. | :03:59. | |
just take your points one by one. Very well. Let us be clear about | :04:00. | :04:03. | |
what you are saying. The Human Rights Act which Tony Blair's | :04:04. | :04:08. | |
government made law in 1998, in essence it incorporates European | :04:09. | :04:11. | |
Convention on human rights into British law. You were a huge fan and | :04:12. | :04:15. | |
one of the architects of doing that. Yes. But you just use some | :04:16. | :04:20. | |
prejudicial language commies said that the Cameron government is | :04:21. | :04:27. | |
threatening to scrappy Human Rights Act. Camera would not say it is a | :04:28. | :04:31. | |
threat, he would say that it is a promise. He got a decent sized | :04:32. | :04:35. | |
majority so it is not a threat, it is a promise? It is a promise that | :04:36. | :04:42. | |
is also a threat because the threat is to replace it, we don't actually | :04:43. | :04:45. | |
know what he said because they haven't yet come clean to what they | :04:46. | :04:49. | |
propose. It may be that they won't come clean. Let me put some of his | :04:50. | :04:56. | |
words into my mouth, he said before the election, he said "Let me put it | :04:57. | :05:02. | |
very clearly, we do not require instruction from judges in | :05:03. | :05:06. | |
Strasberg, this country will have a new British Bill of Rights, to be | :05:07. | :05:11. | |
passed in our Parliament and rooted in our values. May I answer your | :05:12. | :05:18. | |
question. By referring back to the past. When I came to the bar a very | :05:19. | :05:26. | |
long time ago, British rights were very poorly protected. The judges | :05:27. | :05:30. | |
were more executive minded than the executive. We had no fundamental | :05:31. | :05:34. | |
rights guaranteed in law. Free speech for example, one of the | :05:35. | :05:40. | |
rights I'm concerned about. Free speech is a political value but not | :05:41. | :05:44. | |
a legal value, I did a case many years ago about the minimised, when | :05:45. | :05:49. | |
the Sunday Times wanted to expose what was going on with the drug that | :05:50. | :05:54. | |
cause monster birth. The morning sickness drug, damaging very badly. | :05:55. | :06:01. | |
In those days, judges were so reactionary and blinkered, that they | :06:02. | :06:07. | |
made an order, stopping the Sunday Times from publishing. We had to go | :06:08. | :06:12. | |
to Strasbourg for a remedy. In those days, free speech was given very | :06:13. | :06:17. | |
little weight. The same for the privacy and liberty and all of the | :06:18. | :06:21. | |
other right. The government's counterargument is that in recent | :06:22. | :06:24. | |
years, the European Court has first of all been trying to expand its | :06:25. | :06:31. | |
remit, becoming a living institution, by expanding its | :06:32. | :06:33. | |
interpretations of the European Convention on human rights and | :06:34. | :06:38. | |
second of all, in particular instances, in cases of extremism and | :06:39. | :06:43. | |
terrorism, the court has consistently blocked, the British | :06:44. | :06:48. | |
government securing the interests of the British people by deporting | :06:49. | :06:51. | |
suspected extremists. And that according to the Cameron government | :06:52. | :06:56. | |
is just not acceptable. Nor is it true. Nor is it true. It depends on | :06:57. | :07:03. | |
your values. If you believe that it is OK to deport unpleasant and | :07:04. | :07:06. | |
dangerous people, to face the death penalty or torture in another | :07:07. | :07:13. | |
country, then that would be true. But most people certainly in this | :07:14. | :07:17. | |
country and across the world believe that you should not be exposed to | :07:18. | :07:21. | |
the death penalty or torture, and what the Strasberg courts were | :07:22. | :07:25. | |
saying, is that you can of course deport people, but what you can't do | :07:26. | :07:30. | |
is send them to face torture or the death penalty. I do not regard that | :07:31. | :07:35. | |
as an example, of illegal overreaching. But the British | :07:36. | :07:40. | |
government, in a case of Abu Qatada, one of these individuals facing | :07:41. | :07:43. | |
terror countries in his own country in Jordan, they did a bilateral deal | :07:44. | :07:49. | |
with the Jordanians in which the Jordanians promised that they would | :07:50. | :07:53. | |
not be using any form of abuse and torture and the British government | :07:54. | :07:59. | |
sent him back, against the wishes... That was quite right. What they did, | :08:00. | :08:04. | |
that agreement was fine. And eventually it passed muster under | :08:05. | :08:07. | |
the European. Convention you say eventually but the fact is, that | :08:08. | :08:11. | |
have the government not taken the initiative and it nor frankly dilute | :08:12. | :08:14. | |
its coming out Strasberg that would not have happened. No, that is an | :08:15. | :08:21. | |
example of a happy success. Layla the British government had enough of | :08:22. | :08:25. | |
these convoluted and incredibly time-consuming happy successes. They | :08:26. | :08:30. | |
want to route the British bill of rights in British values, and why | :08:31. | :08:34. | |
should they say, why should they have to look to Strasbourg? We have | :08:35. | :08:38. | |
got a very fine tradition dating back eight centuries of developing | :08:39. | :08:43. | |
our own case law and president. We are around the world are seen as a | :08:44. | :08:48. | |
beacon, of the defence of liberty and freedom, and we should be proud | :08:49. | :08:54. | |
of our British values. I am proud of the British record until recently | :08:55. | :08:59. | |
because until recently, parties, both main parties in government | :09:00. | :09:06. | |
complied with the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, to | :09:07. | :09:09. | |
the letter. More than any other countries did. And I am proud of | :09:10. | :09:14. | |
that fact. Unfortunately when Labour was in power, the court decided, the | :09:15. | :09:18. | |
European courts decided, that some prisoners should have the right to | :09:19. | :09:23. | |
vote in Parliamentary elections. And at that time, Jack Straw who was the | :09:24. | :09:29. | |
Lord Chancellor decided not to comply. It was the first time that | :09:30. | :09:33. | |
any British government decided to do so. When David Cameron became Prime | :09:34. | :09:40. | |
Minister, which I supported as a Liberal Democrat, he took the same | :09:41. | :09:45. | |
position. He refused to place any bill, and the same is now true. The | :09:46. | :09:49. | |
result of that terrible example of flouting the juggernaut of the | :09:50. | :09:53. | |
court, was followed by Russia which promptly passed the bill in December | :09:54. | :09:58. | |
making the Duma, the Parliament sovereign, and saying that they can | :09:59. | :10:02. | |
happily flout the judgments in Strasbourg, that violates the rule. | :10:03. | :10:06. | |
White but in a sense that was honest, Vladimir Putin never had any | :10:07. | :10:10. | |
intention of allowing the European Court of having his way whether he | :10:11. | :10:13. | |
got the Duma to pass legislation or not. You fetch a size the importance | :10:14. | :10:18. | |
of the conventional the European Court, when so many of the | :10:19. | :10:22. | |
signatories when just to pick a phew, Turkey, Russia, Azerbaijan, | :10:23. | :10:27. | |
you could even point to some close at home like Hungary and Poland, | :10:28. | :10:33. | |
they do things which to our British perspective do not represent a | :10:34. | :10:37. | |
defence of liberty and good government, rule of law and | :10:38. | :10:39. | |
independent judicial Reece Topley that is why I called my book, five | :10:40. | :10:44. | |
ideas to fight for. Because the rule of law which were now talking about | :10:45. | :10:48. | |
has to be fought for. Even in the United Kingdom, and what I'm saying, | :10:49. | :10:55. | |
is that the serious threats to the rule of law even in our country. I | :10:56. | :11:01. | |
cite for example, the destruction of legal aid, in many parts of the | :11:02. | :11:06. | |
country. The blocking of access to justice, we must not be complacent. | :11:07. | :11:11. | |
What you are describing, may sound great, it is not a question of | :11:12. | :11:16. | |
fetishising it, it is a question of fighting for it. It is a question of | :11:17. | :11:22. | |
where did it is Eli 's and also the sense of accountability for those | :11:23. | :11:28. | |
who are ultimately, wanting a sense of accountability. It is not just me | :11:29. | :11:33. | |
sounding off about this, I am looking at the opinions of esteemed | :11:34. | :11:38. | |
members of the legal establishment, like law judge who was the Lord | :11:39. | :11:41. | |
Chief Justice of England and Wales until quite recently, he said that | :11:42. | :11:45. | |
the European Convention, Court of Human Rights heart "Undermining | :11:46. | :11:52. | |
democracy" it is judges, not Parliament now making British law | :11:53. | :11:55. | |
and Parliamentary sovereignty should not be ceded to a foreign court. Let | :11:56. | :12:00. | |
us just think about that for a moment, what do we mean about | :12:01. | :12:05. | |
Parliamentary sovereignty? We mean an elected dictatorship, when the | :12:06. | :12:08. | |
House of Commons is dominated by the government of the day, Parliamentary | :12:09. | :12:15. | |
sovereignty means they can do whatever they like. We have no | :12:16. | :12:22. | |
written constitution. We have the UK Supreme Court. It has no power to | :12:23. | :12:26. | |
strike down Acts of Parliament. It may give you one example, in 1968, | :12:27. | :12:34. | |
200,000 British Asians were expelled from Uganda and Kenny, on racial | :12:35. | :12:40. | |
grounds. The British government panicked, and in three days and | :12:41. | :12:43. | |
nights passed an emergency bill to take away the right of these British | :12:44. | :12:49. | |
citizens to enter the only country of citizenship. In most countries in | :12:50. | :12:53. | |
the world, like the United States and Canada and South Africa, the | :12:54. | :12:59. | |
courts would be able to say that act was unconstitutional. But in 1968 we | :13:00. | :13:04. | |
were not parties, we couldn't enforce the convention here, I had | :13:05. | :13:08. | |
to go to Strasbourg with those British Asians who are now settled | :13:09. | :13:14. | |
in Leicester, the point I'm trying to make, is that my notion of | :13:15. | :13:23. | |
democracy does not mean, that Parliament or government, either | :13:24. | :13:27. | |
gives us our rights or enforces our rights to the exclusion of the | :13:28. | :13:31. | |
courts. I believe in shared sovereignty, I believe that our | :13:32. | :13:36. | |
courts and our Parliament and our ministers, all have their | :13:37. | :13:39. | |
contributions to make. Shouldn't the balance of powers, if that is what | :13:40. | :13:44. | |
you are describing, it reminds me of the US system with a much clearer | :13:45. | :13:49. | |
definition, shouldn't that all be rooted, in the same authority? And | :13:50. | :13:55. | |
in this case, we are talking about Britain, which issued stew and is. | :13:56. | :13:59. | |
It sticks in many peoples throats that the ultimate legal authority in | :14:00. | :14:03. | |
Britain is deemed to be in Strasbourg? I think the prime, the | :14:04. | :14:11. | |
main responsibility, rights are not the gift of governance. They are not | :14:12. | :14:15. | |
the gift of Parliament, rights are human rights, they are in eight, in | :14:16. | :14:24. | |
our common humanity as human beings. Governments have responsibility to | :14:25. | :14:28. | |
protect those rights, so do judges and parliaments. I believe as you do | :14:29. | :14:32. | |
in your question is that the main responsibility for that is in | :14:33. | :14:39. | |
Britain. You only go to an international or European Devil when | :14:40. | :14:43. | |
the domestic legal organ fails, and it is very important to have that | :14:44. | :14:47. | |
long stop -- or European level when the domestic legal organ fails. All | :14:48. | :14:53. | |
37 countries allow the cases to go to Strasbourg but the British | :14:54. | :14:57. | |
government which has had a superb reputation in complying with | :14:58. | :15:01. | |
judgments even though ministers hated, has decided under Mr Cameron, | :15:02. | :15:06. | |
now to flout the Strasbourg judgment, even though the Strasbourg | :15:07. | :15:09. | |
court has been very careful to say that we are not ruling, that all | :15:10. | :15:13. | |
people should be able to vote, we are only saying that sum should be | :15:14. | :15:21. | |
able to vote but they won't do that. At the nub of your argument is a | :15:22. | :15:27. | |
sense that things have gone awry, in this country, and in the way that | :15:28. | :15:31. | |
our rule of law works. But I come back to a point that I made earlier | :15:32. | :15:34. | |
on. If I look at the track record and the fights that you have fought | :15:35. | :15:38. | |
through the British courts on everything from gender equality to | :15:39. | :15:43. | |
ending racial discrimination. Workers rights, a whole bunch of | :15:44. | :15:46. | |
things, different aspects of the human rights agenda, time after | :15:47. | :15:50. | |
time, you have scored victories and if we look back to the 60s, when we | :15:51. | :15:57. | |
began the work when homosexuality is illegal, and today, with gay | :15:58. | :16:00. | |
marriage the norm, Britain has come an awful long way. It has come that | :16:01. | :16:05. | |
distance because it courts are adaptable, because we have a very | :16:06. | :16:09. | |
flexible system and partly because of the centuries of confidence that | :16:10. | :16:13. | |
we have to ride from caselaw and precedent, from the way that the | :16:14. | :16:18. | |
British system works, and you seem fundamentally dissatisfied with it | :16:19. | :16:23. | |
and I'm still not sure why? I'm not fundamentally dissatisfied, I think | :16:24. | :16:27. | |
that the judges were awful when I came to the bar. They were | :16:28. | :16:33. | |
narrow-minded and often literal. I think the judges now are the best in | :16:34. | :16:37. | |
the world. I think that is terrific, a wonderful change. I think that we | :16:38. | :16:44. | |
have achieved great progress in Parliament, in many of the laws I | :16:45. | :16:49. | |
have been involved with. One equality, rights, free speech, civil | :16:50. | :16:54. | |
partnership, all of that our games. I'm not saying that everything the | :16:55. | :16:59. | |
last few years is terrible, on the contrary. I am saying that we have | :17:00. | :17:02. | |
achieved a lot, but a lot more should be achieved and it is for a | :17:03. | :17:07. | |
new generation as young as you are but even younger, to be able to take | :17:08. | :17:13. | |
up the bat, and defend what we have. Because what we now have is under | :17:14. | :17:21. | |
threat. I'm going to take the flattery about my youth and move on. | :17:22. | :17:24. | |
Freedom of speech is something I want to talk about. The government | :17:25. | :17:31. | |
is keen to find ways, to suppress not just incitement to hatred and | :17:32. | :17:35. | |
incitement to violence, but extremism in a broader form, vocal | :17:36. | :17:39. | |
active opposition to fundamental British values. Do you worry, that | :17:40. | :17:46. | |
such is the concern about extremism and terrorism, that we are now | :17:47. | :17:53. | |
encroaching seriously into freedom of expression? Absolutely, I worry | :17:54. | :17:58. | |
about that at the level of government and students in | :17:59. | :18:01. | |
universities, I believe that there is no duty to offend but there is a | :18:02. | :18:06. | |
right to offend. I believe that in a democracy, we not only, how values, | :18:07. | :18:13. | |
that by the majority permissible but those that cause offence, to a | :18:14. | :18:17. | |
particular section of society. You are Jewish and at the moment on the | :18:18. | :18:25. | |
is a big argument about whether the views that are extraordinary | :18:26. | :18:29. | |
critical of Israel, should be allowed when some Jewish students | :18:30. | :18:35. | |
deemed them to be anti-Semitic. Yes, I think that there is every right to | :18:36. | :18:41. | |
criticise Israel forcefully. I deplore the fact that students, not | :18:42. | :18:46. | |
only Jewish students but students generally these days, are asking for | :18:47. | :18:49. | |
safe platforms where they don't have two here views, safe rooms where | :18:50. | :18:54. | |
they don't have two here views. And they have a culture of no platform. | :18:55. | :19:00. | |
That is absurd, I'm sorry that universities allow that. Similar | :19:01. | :19:04. | |
with government, apparently they want to have another extremism bill. | :19:05. | :19:10. | |
What is extremism? For example when Nelson Mandela at the ANC was | :19:11. | :19:18. | |
struggling against apartheid, and people were campaigning against | :19:19. | :19:23. | |
apartheid, was that extremism? No. It wasn't extremism because we | :19:24. | :19:27. | |
supported the point of view. But you cannot have a law which bans ideas | :19:28. | :19:35. | |
you don't like and allows, is your ideal the American first Amendment? | :19:36. | :19:39. | |
Yes, although I think the first Amendment has done some rather silly | :19:40. | :19:44. | |
things. But in the main I am closer to the first Amendment than I am to | :19:45. | :19:49. | |
the extremism bill. And I think there is a great danger, talk about | :19:50. | :19:54. | |
risks, with the fear of terrorism, which is perfectly | :19:55. | :19:59. | |
legitimate, with the fallout from that, there is a great risk that we | :20:00. | :20:04. | |
will make it worse with our British Muslim fellow citizens by banning | :20:05. | :20:10. | |
ideas and driving them into opposition. Except, that the chief | :20:11. | :20:19. | |
legal officer for SOS racism in France, the organisation that fights | :20:20. | :20:22. | |
against racism, he has been reflecting on this and the degree to | :20:23. | :20:26. | |
which you can try to outlaw not just those who are called in to violence | :20:27. | :20:30. | |
but those whose extreme language encourages violence. He says "Just | :20:31. | :20:34. | |
because somebody is making hate peels comments without exposing the | :20:35. | :20:38. | |
calling for this car tax doesn't mean that the speech will lead to | :20:39. | :20:43. | |
physical attacks? . That is worth thinking about. Yes of course, it is | :20:44. | :20:48. | |
a very difficult problem, we had this problem some years ago about | :20:49. | :20:53. | |
Regis hatred. What happened when Tony Blair was Prime Minister, was | :20:54. | :21:00. | |
after the invasion of Iraq, the Labour Party was worried that | :21:01. | :21:03. | |
British Muslims would vote for my party and not for theirs. So they | :21:04. | :21:07. | |
wrote to every mosque saying dear mosque, if you vote Labour, we will | :21:08. | :21:15. | |
give you a blasphemy law. That was a huge mistake, it was the beginning | :21:16. | :21:20. | |
of a trend in race politics, which has gone on now. It was H Amend 's | :21:21. | :21:26. | |
mistake to do that. My view is that religious ideas must be exposed to | :21:27. | :21:30. | |
ridicule and criticism, like every other idea. And you cannot have a | :21:31. | :21:37. | |
safeguard, for the profit, Jesus or God or anything of that kind. Some | :21:38. | :21:44. | |
years ago, Ian Forster the novelist gave a lecture under the title, "Did | :21:45. | :21:55. | |
Jesus have a sense of humour?". Could the Jewish audience have a | :21:56. | :21:59. | |
title "Does God have a sense of humour?". And one day be will be | :22:00. | :22:04. | |
able to give a titled "Does the Prophet have a sense of humour?". | :22:05. | :22:10. | |
That must be our aim, tolerance, the spirit of liberty is the spirit that | :22:11. | :22:15. | |
is not sure it is right. The final question, we get to the revelations | :22:16. | :22:19. | |
of Edward Snowden and everything we have learnt about in Massa valence | :22:20. | :22:23. | |
and the balance between privacy, and collective security. Would you, be | :22:24. | :22:32. | |
happy to know that the state, hearing the United Kingdom is able | :22:33. | :22:37. | |
to take the data from your e-mailing, from your digital life, | :22:38. | :22:43. | |
and crunch it in supercomputers, and try to assess whether you are a risk | :22:44. | :22:49. | |
to the state? I am willing to put up with that if there are adequate | :22:50. | :22:53. | |
safeguards against the misuse of the information. The real problem is not | :22:54. | :22:59. | |
abstract principle, what are the effective safeguards, and we have an | :23:00. | :23:02. | |
independent review of terrorism, David Anderson QC, who has explained | :23:03. | :23:09. | |
all of this and again Parliament will face that problem pretty soon. | :23:10. | :23:15. | |
I'm not one of those libertarians. Post-Paris attacks, David Cameron | :23:16. | :23:19. | |
said that he believed that the scope and extent of electronic | :23:20. | :23:24. | |
surveillance has to be expanded? Yes that is true. You are not talking to | :23:25. | :23:28. | |
an absolutist, I can see that a strong case for the mining of bulk | :23:29. | :23:35. | |
data as it is called. Providing the adequate safeguards, which means | :23:36. | :23:39. | |
including the safeguards, judicial safeguards. That is what the battle | :23:40. | :23:43. | |
is going to be about. Not the abstract principle, with all of | :23:44. | :23:48. | |
these tricky things that I try to explore, I'm not saying that there | :23:49. | :23:52. | |
are clear and absolute answers. We need to ask the right questions as | :23:53. | :23:57. | |
we are now doing. Thank you, we have two end those questions right now, | :23:58. | :24:00. | |
Lord Lester thank you for being on HARDtalk. Thank you. Thank you. | :24:01. | :24:11. | |
MUSIC | :24:12. | :24:23. |