Reuters reports that the British Home secretary (interior minister) Theresa May yesterday said, that Britain should consider leaving the European Convention on Human Rights because it interferes with the government's ability to fight crime and control immigration,
The Court applies the European Convention on Human Rights. Its task is to ensure that States respect the rights and guarantees set out in the Convention. I for one am extremely happy and relieved that the court exists and caries out the purpose for which it was created, however irritating it may be for the various purportedly democratic nations, courts or politicians.
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| Theresa May, Minister of the Interior |
May's Conservative Party has long criticized the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which enforces the convention, as an encroachment on British sovereignty.
Among other things the ECHR in January 2012 overruled the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom on the issue of deporting the radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada to Jordan, where he is wanted on terrorism charges. The ECHR held that he could not lawfully be deported because a trial in Jordan could be tainted by evidence obtained under torture.
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Call me naive and clueless but the mere fact that a statement of this enormity can be made by a top politician in Europe, let alone Britain of all countries, feels like a kick in the balls and leaves me totally flabbergasted and gasping for breath with pain and astonishment. Admittedly Mrs. May is presumably trying to draw attention to herself as a future candidate to succeed David Cameron as the leader of Britain' s Conservative Party but surely there must be limits to the stupidity?
Shame on you Mrs May! And shame also on the Conservative Party of Britain and Britain itself for making such sentiments convenient and possible among its leading representatives.
