:00:00. > :00:00.part of plans to save ?15 million. Outside sources coming up at nine,
:00:00. > :00:17.but now, it is time for HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk, I am Stephen
:00:18. > :00:23.Sackur. Britain proudly claims to be the original land of liberty, King
:00:24. > :00:26.John had his authoritarian wings clipped, by his noblemen in the
:00:27. > :00:31.Magna Carta, eight centuries ago. And the rest, the rest is history.
:00:32. > :00:36.But how healthy are Britain's liberties today, for the past five
:00:37. > :00:41.decades, my guest, Lord Lester has been one of the country's foremost
:00:42. > :00:45.illegal champions of human rights and judicial independence. After
:00:46. > :01:00.scoring some famous victories, why is he sounding so alarmed?
:01:01. > :01:23.Lord Lester, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. The past 50 years or
:01:24. > :01:26.more, you have been fighting the good fight for human rights in the
:01:27. > :01:31.UK hands as I have just said you had scored some famous victories, it
:01:32. > :01:35.seems to me that yours is a story of relative success, why are you
:01:36. > :01:42.sounding so agitated, so worried about liberties in Britain today?
:01:43. > :01:47.Because although we have achieved much in 50 years, much that we have
:01:48. > :01:51.achieved is threatened. And I am very worried about that and
:01:52. > :01:56.therefore I have written a book in order to encourage young people, to
:01:57. > :02:01.fight for what we have fought for. That means understanding the past,
:02:02. > :02:04.it also means understanding what we have achieved and understanding what
:02:05. > :02:10.we still need to fight. Quite you talk about the book, the book is
:02:11. > :02:14.about five ideas, to fight for. That is really what it is for. These
:02:15. > :02:18.ideas are human rights, equality, free speech, privacy and the rule of
:02:19. > :02:22.law. Many people watching this programme around the world who will
:02:23. > :02:25.think that on all of those five criteria, Britain frankly compared
:02:26. > :02:34.to most countries in the world, scores pretty well? Well, I think
:02:35. > :02:38.that is probably true. But it doesn't mean to say, that in
:02:39. > :02:44.Britain, those ideas are not under threat. Because they are. For
:02:45. > :02:50.example. I took 30 years to get the Human Rights Act. The Human Rights
:02:51. > :02:54.Act is not like the constitutions of most democracies in the world, that
:02:55. > :03:00.are written which allow judges to strike down laws that are
:03:01. > :03:04.unconstitutional. Instead, we use the European Convention on human
:03:05. > :03:07.rights which is a treaty, and we don't allow allow judges to strike
:03:08. > :03:11.down laws, we do something more subtle, we allow the judges to
:03:12. > :03:17.declare that Acts of Parliament are not compatible with European rights,
:03:18. > :03:21.and it is for the government and parliament to decide what to do
:03:22. > :03:26.about it. What is now under threat, is that David Cameron's government,
:03:27. > :03:33.the present government have threatened in the manifesto, and I
:03:34. > :03:37.guess a beyond, to tear up the Human Rights Act, and produce a British
:03:38. > :03:42.bill of rights. And they have said that they will review whether we
:03:43. > :03:46.should be party to the European Convention on human rights. That
:03:47. > :03:53.pleases studio democracies, dictators, for example Russia. You
:03:54. > :03:59.are racing ahead like a wild horse. I am going like a torture. They're
:04:00. > :04:03.just take your points one by one. Very well. Let us be clear about
:04:04. > :04:08.what you are saying. The Human Rights Act which Tony Blair's
:04:09. > :04:11.government made law in 1998, in essence it incorporates European
:04:12. > :04:15.Convention on human rights into British law. You were a huge fan and
:04:16. > :04:20.one of the architects of doing that. Yes. But you just use some
:04:21. > :04:27.prejudicial language commies said that the Cameron government is
:04:28. > :04:31.threatening to scrappy Human Rights Act. Camera would not say it is a
:04:32. > :04:35.threat, he would say that it is a promise. He got a decent sized
:04:36. > :04:42.majority so it is not a threat, it is a promise? It is a promise that
:04:43. > :04:45.is also a threat because the threat is to replace it, we don't actually
:04:46. > :04:49.know what he said because they haven't yet come clean to what they
:04:50. > :04:56.propose. It may be that they won't come clean. Let me put some of his
:04:57. > :05:02.words into my mouth, he said before the election, he said "Let me put it
:05:03. > :05:06.very clearly, we do not require instruction from judges in
:05:07. > :05:11.Strasberg, this country will have a new British Bill of Rights, to be
:05:12. > :05:18.passed in our Parliament and rooted in our values. May I answer your
:05:19. > :05:26.question. By referring back to the past. When I came to the bar a very
:05:27. > :05:30.long time ago, British rights were very poorly protected. The judges
:05:31. > :05:34.were more executive minded than the executive. We had no fundamental
:05:35. > :05:40.rights guaranteed in law. Free speech for example, one of the
:05:41. > :05:44.rights I'm concerned about. Free speech is a political value but not
:05:45. > :05:49.a legal value, I did a case many years ago about the minimised, when
:05:50. > :05:54.the Sunday Times wanted to expose what was going on with the drug that
:05:55. > :06:01.cause monster birth. The morning sickness drug, damaging very badly.
:06:02. > :06:07.In those days, judges were so reactionary and blinkered, that they
:06:08. > :06:12.made an order, stopping the Sunday Times from publishing. We had to go
:06:13. > :06:17.to Strasbourg for a remedy. In those days, free speech was given very
:06:18. > :06:21.little weight. The same for the privacy and liberty and all of the
:06:22. > :06:24.other right. The government's counterargument is that in recent
:06:25. > :06:31.years, the European Court has first of all been trying to expand its
:06:32. > :06:33.remit, becoming a living institution, by expanding its
:06:34. > :06:38.interpretations of the European Convention on human rights and
:06:39. > :06:43.second of all, in particular instances, in cases of extremism and
:06:44. > :06:48.terrorism, the court has consistently blocked, the British
:06:49. > :06:51.government securing the interests of the British people by deporting
:06:52. > :06:56.suspected extremists. And that according to the Cameron government
:06:57. > :07:03.is just not acceptable. Nor is it true. Nor is it true. It depends on
:07:04. > :07:06.your values. If you believe that it is OK to deport unpleasant and
:07:07. > :07:13.dangerous people, to face the death penalty or torture in another
:07:14. > :07:17.country, then that would be true. But most people certainly in this
:07:18. > :07:21.country and across the world believe that you should not be exposed to
:07:22. > :07:25.the death penalty or torture, and what the Strasberg courts were
:07:26. > :07:30.saying, is that you can of course deport people, but what you can't do
:07:31. > :07:35.is send them to face torture or the death penalty. I do not regard that
:07:36. > :07:40.as an example, of illegal overreaching. But the British
:07:41. > :07:43.government, in a case of Abu Qatada, one of these individuals facing
:07:44. > :07:49.terror countries in his own country in Jordan, they did a bilateral deal
:07:50. > :07:53.with the Jordanians in which the Jordanians promised that they would
:07:54. > :07:59.not be using any form of abuse and torture and the British government
:08:00. > :08:04.sent him back, against the wishes... That was quite right. What they did,
:08:05. > :08:07.that agreement was fine. And eventually it passed muster under
:08:08. > :08:11.the European. Convention you say eventually but the fact is, that
:08:12. > :08:14.have the government not taken the initiative and it nor frankly dilute
:08:15. > :08:21.its coming out Strasberg that would not have happened. No, that is an
:08:22. > :08:25.example of a happy success. Layla the British government had enough of
:08:26. > :08:30.these convoluted and incredibly time-consuming happy successes. They
:08:31. > :08:34.want to route the British bill of rights in British values, and why
:08:35. > :08:38.should they say, why should they have to look to Strasbourg? We have
:08:39. > :08:43.got a very fine tradition dating back eight centuries of developing
:08:44. > :08:48.our own case law and president. We are around the world are seen as a
:08:49. > :08:54.beacon, of the defence of liberty and freedom, and we should be proud
:08:55. > :08:59.of our British values. I am proud of the British record until recently
:09:00. > :09:06.because until recently, parties, both main parties in government
:09:07. > :09:09.complied with the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, to
:09:10. > :09:14.the letter. More than any other countries did. And I am proud of
:09:15. > :09:18.that fact. Unfortunately when Labour was in power, the court decided, the
:09:19. > :09:23.European courts decided, that some prisoners should have the right to
:09:24. > :09:29.vote in Parliamentary elections. And at that time, Jack Straw who was the
:09:30. > :09:33.Lord Chancellor decided not to comply. It was the first time that
:09:34. > :09:40.any British government decided to do so. When David Cameron became Prime
:09:41. > :09:45.Minister, which I supported as a Liberal Democrat, he took the same
:09:46. > :09:49.position. He refused to place any bill, and the same is now true. The
:09:50. > :09:53.result of that terrible example of flouting the juggernaut of the
:09:54. > :09:58.court, was followed by Russia which promptly passed the bill in December
:09:59. > :10:02.making the Duma, the Parliament sovereign, and saying that they can
:10:03. > :10:06.happily flout the judgments in Strasbourg, that violates the rule.
:10:07. > :10:10.White but in a sense that was honest, Vladimir Putin never had any
:10:11. > :10:13.intention of allowing the European Court of having his way whether he
:10:14. > :10:18.got the Duma to pass legislation or not. You fetch a size the importance
:10:19. > :10:22.of the conventional the European Court, when so many of the
:10:23. > :10:27.signatories when just to pick a phew, Turkey, Russia, Azerbaijan,
:10:28. > :10:33.you could even point to some close at home like Hungary and Poland,
:10:34. > :10:37.they do things which to our British perspective do not represent a
:10:38. > :10:39.defence of liberty and good government, rule of law and
:10:40. > :10:44.independent judicial Reece Topley that is why I called my book, five
:10:45. > :10:48.ideas to fight for. Because the rule of law which were now talking about
:10:49. > :10:55.has to be fought for. Even in the United Kingdom, and what I'm saying,
:10:56. > :11:01.is that the serious threats to the rule of law even in our country. I
:11:02. > :11:06.cite for example, the destruction of legal aid, in many parts of the
:11:07. > :11:11.country. The blocking of access to justice, we must not be complacent.
:11:12. > :11:16.What you are describing, may sound great, it is not a question of
:11:17. > :11:22.fetishising it, it is a question of fighting for it. It is a question of
:11:23. > :11:28.where did it is Eli 's and also the sense of accountability for those
:11:29. > :11:33.who are ultimately, wanting a sense of accountability. It is not just me
:11:34. > :11:38.sounding off about this, I am looking at the opinions of esteemed
:11:39. > :11:41.members of the legal establishment, like law judge who was the Lord
:11:42. > :11:45.Chief Justice of England and Wales until quite recently, he said that
:11:46. > :11:52.the European Convention, Court of Human Rights heart "Undermining
:11:53. > :11:55.democracy" it is judges, not Parliament now making British law
:11:56. > :12:00.and Parliamentary sovereignty should not be ceded to a foreign court. Let
:12:01. > :12:05.us just think about that for a moment, what do we mean about
:12:06. > :12:08.Parliamentary sovereignty? We mean an elected dictatorship, when the
:12:09. > :12:15.House of Commons is dominated by the government of the day, Parliamentary
:12:16. > :12:22.sovereignty means they can do whatever they like. We have no
:12:23. > :12:26.written constitution. We have the UK Supreme Court. It has no power to
:12:27. > :12:34.strike down Acts of Parliament. It may give you one example, in 1968,
:12:35. > :12:40.200,000 British Asians were expelled from Uganda and Kenny, on racial
:12:41. > :12:43.grounds. The British government panicked, and in three days and
:12:44. > :12:49.nights passed an emergency bill to take away the right of these British
:12:50. > :12:53.citizens to enter the only country of citizenship. In most countries in
:12:54. > :12:59.the world, like the United States and Canada and South Africa, the
:13:00. > :13:04.courts would be able to say that act was unconstitutional. But in 1968 we
:13:05. > :13:08.were not parties, we couldn't enforce the convention here, I had
:13:09. > :13:14.to go to Strasbourg with those British Asians who are now settled
:13:15. > :13:23.in Leicester, the point I'm trying to make, is that my notion of
:13:24. > :13:27.democracy does not mean, that Parliament or government, either
:13:28. > :13:31.gives us our rights or enforces our rights to the exclusion of the
:13:32. > :13:36.courts. I believe in shared sovereignty, I believe that our
:13:37. > :13:39.courts and our Parliament and our ministers, all have their
:13:40. > :13:44.contributions to make. Shouldn't the balance of powers, if that is what
:13:45. > :13:49.you are describing, it reminds me of the US system with a much clearer
:13:50. > :13:55.definition, shouldn't that all be rooted, in the same authority? And
:13:56. > :13:59.in this case, we are talking about Britain, which issued stew and is.
:14:00. > :14:03.It sticks in many peoples throats that the ultimate legal authority in
:14:04. > :14:11.Britain is deemed to be in Strasbourg? I think the prime, the
:14:12. > :14:15.main responsibility, rights are not the gift of governance. They are not
:14:16. > :14:24.the gift of Parliament, rights are human rights, they are in eight, in
:14:25. > :14:28.our common humanity as human beings. Governments have responsibility to
:14:29. > :14:32.protect those rights, so do judges and parliaments. I believe as you do
:14:33. > :14:39.in your question is that the main responsibility for that is in
:14:40. > :14:43.Britain. You only go to an international or European Devil when
:14:44. > :14:47.the domestic legal organ fails, and it is very important to have that
:14:48. > :14:53.long stop -- or European level when the domestic legal organ fails. All
:14:54. > :14:57.37 countries allow the cases to go to Strasbourg but the British
:14:58. > :15:01.government which has had a superb reputation in complying with
:15:02. > :15:06.judgments even though ministers hated, has decided under Mr Cameron,
:15:07. > :15:09.now to flout the Strasbourg judgment, even though the Strasbourg
:15:10. > :15:13.court has been very careful to say that we are not ruling, that all
:15:14. > :15:21.people should be able to vote, we are only saying that sum should be
:15:22. > :15:27.able to vote but they won't do that. At the nub of your argument is a
:15:28. > :15:31.sense that things have gone awry, in this country, and in the way that
:15:32. > :15:34.our rule of law works. But I come back to a point that I made earlier
:15:35. > :15:38.on. If I look at the track record and the fights that you have fought
:15:39. > :15:43.through the British courts on everything from gender equality to
:15:44. > :15:46.ending racial discrimination. Workers rights, a whole bunch of
:15:47. > :15:50.things, different aspects of the human rights agenda, time after
:15:51. > :15:57.time, you have scored victories and if we look back to the 60s, when we
:15:58. > :16:00.began the work when homosexuality is illegal, and today, with gay
:16:01. > :16:05.marriage the norm, Britain has come an awful long way. It has come that
:16:06. > :16:09.distance because it courts are adaptable, because we have a very
:16:10. > :16:13.flexible system and partly because of the centuries of confidence that
:16:14. > :16:18.we have to ride from caselaw and precedent, from the way that the
:16:19. > :16:23.British system works, and you seem fundamentally dissatisfied with it
:16:24. > :16:27.and I'm still not sure why? I'm not fundamentally dissatisfied, I think
:16:28. > :16:33.that the judges were awful when I came to the bar. They were
:16:34. > :16:37.narrow-minded and often literal. I think the judges now are the best in
:16:38. > :16:44.the world. I think that is terrific, a wonderful change. I think that we
:16:45. > :16:49.have achieved great progress in Parliament, in many of the laws I
:16:50. > :16:54.have been involved with. One equality, rights, free speech, civil
:16:55. > :16:59.partnership, all of that our games. I'm not saying that everything the
:17:00. > :17:02.last few years is terrible, on the contrary. I am saying that we have
:17:03. > :17:07.achieved a lot, but a lot more should be achieved and it is for a
:17:08. > :17:13.new generation as young as you are but even younger, to be able to take
:17:14. > :17:21.up the bat, and defend what we have. Because what we now have is under
:17:22. > :17:24.threat. I'm going to take the flattery about my youth and move on.
:17:25. > :17:31.Freedom of speech is something I want to talk about. The government
:17:32. > :17:35.is keen to find ways, to suppress not just incitement to hatred and
:17:36. > :17:39.incitement to violence, but extremism in a broader form, vocal
:17:40. > :17:46.active opposition to fundamental British values. Do you worry, that
:17:47. > :17:53.such is the concern about extremism and terrorism, that we are now
:17:54. > :17:58.encroaching seriously into freedom of expression? Absolutely, I worry
:17:59. > :18:01.about that at the level of government and students in
:18:02. > :18:06.universities, I believe that there is no duty to offend but there is a
:18:07. > :18:13.right to offend. I believe that in a democracy, we not only, how values,
:18:14. > :18:17.that by the majority permissible but those that cause offence, to a
:18:18. > :18:25.particular section of society. You are Jewish and at the moment on the
:18:26. > :18:29.is a big argument about whether the views that are extraordinary
:18:30. > :18:35.critical of Israel, should be allowed when some Jewish students
:18:36. > :18:41.deemed them to be anti-Semitic. Yes, I think that there is every right to
:18:42. > :18:46.criticise Israel forcefully. I deplore the fact that students, not
:18:47. > :18:49.only Jewish students but students generally these days, are asking for
:18:50. > :18:54.safe platforms where they don't have two here views, safe rooms where
:18:55. > :19:00.they don't have two here views. And they have a culture of no platform.
:19:01. > :19:04.That is absurd, I'm sorry that universities allow that. Similar
:19:05. > :19:10.with government, apparently they want to have another extremism bill.
:19:11. > :19:18.What is extremism? For example when Nelson Mandela at the ANC was
:19:19. > :19:23.struggling against apartheid, and people were campaigning against
:19:24. > :19:27.apartheid, was that extremism? No. It wasn't extremism because we
:19:28. > :19:35.supported the point of view. But you cannot have a law which bans ideas
:19:36. > :19:39.you don't like and allows, is your ideal the American first Amendment?
:19:40. > :19:44.Yes, although I think the first Amendment has done some rather silly
:19:45. > :19:49.things. But in the main I am closer to the first Amendment than I am to
:19:50. > :19:54.the extremism bill. And I think there is a great danger, talk about
:19:55. > :19:59.risks, with the fear of terrorism, which is perfectly
:20:00. > :20:04.legitimate, with the fallout from that, there is a great risk that we
:20:05. > :20:10.will make it worse with our British Muslim fellow citizens by banning
:20:11. > :20:19.ideas and driving them into opposition. Except, that the chief
:20:20. > :20:22.legal officer for SOS racism in France, the organisation that fights
:20:23. > :20:26.against racism, he has been reflecting on this and the degree to
:20:27. > :20:30.which you can try to outlaw not just those who are called in to violence
:20:31. > :20:34.but those whose extreme language encourages violence. He says "Just
:20:35. > :20:38.because somebody is making hate peels comments without exposing the
:20:39. > :20:43.calling for this car tax doesn't mean that the speech will lead to
:20:44. > :20:48.physical attacks? . That is worth thinking about. Yes of course, it is
:20:49. > :20:53.a very difficult problem, we had this problem some years ago about
:20:54. > :21:00.Regis hatred. What happened when Tony Blair was Prime Minister, was
:21:01. > :21:03.after the invasion of Iraq, the Labour Party was worried that
:21:04. > :21:07.British Muslims would vote for my party and not for theirs. So they
:21:08. > :21:15.wrote to every mosque saying dear mosque, if you vote Labour, we will
:21:16. > :21:20.give you a blasphemy law. That was a huge mistake, it was the beginning
:21:21. > :21:26.of a trend in race politics, which has gone on now. It was H Amend 's
:21:27. > :21:30.mistake to do that. My view is that religious ideas must be exposed to
:21:31. > :21:37.ridicule and criticism, like every other idea. And you cannot have a
:21:38. > :21:44.safeguard, for the profit, Jesus or God or anything of that kind. Some
:21:45. > :21:55.years ago, Ian Forster the novelist gave a lecture under the title, "Did
:21:56. > :21:59.Jesus have a sense of humour?". Could the Jewish audience have a
:22:00. > :22:04.title "Does God have a sense of humour?". And one day be will be
:22:05. > :22:10.able to give a titled "Does the Prophet have a sense of humour?".
:22:11. > :22:15.That must be our aim, tolerance, the spirit of liberty is the spirit that
:22:16. > :22:19.is not sure it is right. The final question, we get to the revelations
:22:20. > :22:23.of Edward Snowden and everything we have learnt about in Massa valence
:22:24. > :22:32.and the balance between privacy, and collective security. Would you, be
:22:33. > :22:37.happy to know that the state, hearing the United Kingdom is able
:22:38. > :22:43.to take the data from your e-mailing, from your digital life,
:22:44. > :22:49.and crunch it in supercomputers, and try to assess whether you are a risk
:22:50. > :22:53.to the state? I am willing to put up with that if there are adequate
:22:54. > :22:59.safeguards against the misuse of the information. The real problem is not
:23:00. > :23:02.abstract principle, what are the effective safeguards, and we have an
:23:03. > :23:09.independent review of terrorism, David Anderson QC, who has explained
:23:10. > :23:15.all of this and again Parliament will face that problem pretty soon.
:23:16. > :23:19.I'm not one of those libertarians. Post-Paris attacks, David Cameron
:23:20. > :23:24.said that he believed that the scope and extent of electronic
:23:25. > :23:28.surveillance has to be expanded? Yes that is true. You are not talking to
:23:29. > :23:35.an absolutist, I can see that a strong case for the mining of bulk
:23:36. > :23:39.data as it is called. Providing the adequate safeguards, which means
:23:40. > :23:43.including the safeguards, judicial safeguards. That is what the battle
:23:44. > :23:48.is going to be about. Not the abstract principle, with all of
:23:49. > :23:52.these tricky things that I try to explore, I'm not saying that there
:23:53. > :23:57.are clear and absolute answers. We need to ask the right questions as
:23:58. > :24:00.we are now doing. Thank you, we have two end those questions right now,
:24:01. > :24:11.Lord Lester thank you for being on HARDtalk. Thank you. Thank you.
:24:12. > :24:23.MUSIC