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The court they are talking about is obviously the European Court of Human Rights, and this has nothing to do with Brexit. It is an institution of the Council of Europe, not of the EU, and the UK has been a member of CoE and a signatory to its Convention on Human Rights for over 70 years. Like 45 other European countries...in fact, all of them except Belarus and Russia.
Yes, I remember one of my Constitutional Law lecturers saying that, "You know that if you mix up the European Court of Human Rights with the EU or the ECJ in your essay you will be automatically failed?" It was something they really drummed into us at Law School as it's obviously a common mistake or misconception amongst the general public.
Although the UK was the first signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and has latterly brought that treaty into domestic UK law by means of the Human Rights Act 1998, the judgments of my the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) aren't actually binding on UK courts or the government. They can only rule that a law or decision is incompatible with European Human rights law but they cannot set that law or decision aside. This means that if they do find that Shamima Begum's human rights were violated by the UK stripping her of her sovereignty there is nothing the court can do to make the UK Government overturn it's decision and allow her back in. So, it would be effectively a judgment against the UK and a censure of the government's decision but would be otherwise unenforceable if the government chose to just ignore it. They've ignored with impunity plenty of adverse judgments from the ECtHR in the past. That's what makes European Human Rights law different from EU law where the doctrine of the direct effect of EU law and the binding nature of ECJ judgments on Member States is long established by case law (over 60 years in fact). In summation, even if she does go to the ECtHR and they rule that the UK is in breach of the Convention it won't change very much at all.
But that common mistake is customarily exploited by anti-EU and anti-immigrant forces (not just in Britain) whenever the European Court of Human Rights is passing a decision that doesn't fit into their (racist or at least anti-immigrant) agenda. They'll blame the EU and the ECJ (in Luxemburg, not Strasbourg, by the way) when the court finds that there was a violation of human rights, claiming that "Brussels" is intervening with their judicial process, simply to arouse nationalist sentiment.
And there is no reason to criticise the party of ANY kind of litigation, nor their lawyers, for using all measures provided by law up to the final instance, and in this case also another route, as it is indeed clear that the ECtHR is not a super-instance for national courts.
Lucy Letby's story is a particularly sick one, but still one wonders if a "whole life tariff" protects lives - since she wouldn't be able to repeat her deeds anyway, and I think she must be a rather disturbed person to have committed the murders in the first place. I hope she'll get some psychiatric counseling while in prison and maybe see the light some day...not necessarily outside prison walls, but within her mind.
- When we lock someone up for the rest of their life, we do so because we consider them a menace to society, am I correct? We also (but with lower priority) do so to keep an otherwise restless society, no doubt screaming for blood after such heinous crimes, somewhat satisfied in a cathartic way, am I correct about that (too)?
- However, we give this woman zero chance to ever get out, ergo she has nothing to look forward to, no prospects whatsoever. I roughly see three scenarios: 1) Prison is hell, and she'll spend her remaining decades suffering and wishing for death; she might even take her own life if given the chance; 2) She repents, finds religion, accepts her guilt, thinks about her sins, and becomes a model prisoner; 3) She hooks up with the wrong people, turns radical, plays an ugly role in prison too, making more victims, directly or indirectly, from behind bars. Am I correct about this (too)?
The thing is that I am always conflicted in such matters. On the one hand, I want the individual criminal locked up, simply to have a dangerous element removed from the free world. I won't lie, I also want bad people to pay for what they did. On the other hand, the more criminals we put away, the more we "clog up" the penitentiary system, with more displeased inmates as a consequence, more radicalization "inside" as a secondary consequence, and thus, ironically, an even bigger threat to us in the end. By taking away the prospect that the criminal may one day be set free, we leave very little room for said criminal to become a better person and inspire others once she's returned to society. Then again, recidivism scores high among ex-inmates, so...I mean, it's this constant back-and-forth in my mind that's preventing me from landing on a definitive stance. Locking people up forever doesn't seem to be the best option, but not locking them up forever doesn't either. Since I'm far from an expert in these matters, I'm hitting a blank wall at some point and can't decide either way. Some inspiration is more than welcome. Hence this post.
It is all those things that made me refuse my chance of becoming a judge (which is a career public-employee job here, which you can start once you have your law exams) in 1987, in favour of joining a corporate legal department. Because if you become a judge in the German systems, you can expect (and not avoid) being a criminal trial judge, even if you'd rather be a judge for only civil cases...which I find a lot more interesting, and especially more uplifting. I've regretted my decision a several times over the last 30 years, but not because I missed handling criminal cases, and I really did hardly anything in terms of criminal cases since. Fine with me.
Don't know if this helps you after hitting that blank wall, but it's a try.
Yes, that helps, @j_w_pepper ! Thank you. Also, a judge? You could have been a judge? That sounds very impressive to me.
https://davidallengreen.com/2024/01/how-the-legal-system-made-it-so-easy-for-the-post-office-to-destroy-the-lives-of-the-sub-postmasters-and-sub-postmistresses-and-how-the-legal-system-then-made-it-so-hard-for-them-to-obtain-justice/
The UK Government's solution is to be an Act of Parliament exonerating all of those caught up in the scandal by quashing their convictions for theft and false accounting etc., thus overruling the courts as they are able to under the parliamentary sovereignty doctrine of the British constitution:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/10/rishi-sunak-announces-plan-to-pass-law-quashing-horizon-post-office-scandal-convictions
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/16/house-of-commons-votes-in-favour-of-smoking-ban-despite-opposition-from-dozens-of-tories
Interesting...especially since this almost coincides with the decision by German parliament to allow recreational use of cannabis products...
That is interesting. I wasn't aware of that. I believe this Bill still has to go through the House of Lords so it could still be amended or blocked in theory.