According to the UK Independence Party website UKIP will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election:
EU membership and the Human Rights Act. UKIP believes that only through EU withdrawal and the repeal of the Human Rights Act, with its Continental model of States granting rights rather than the Anglo Saxon model of natural rights, can sensible crime fighting measures be taken.
I would be interested to hear both positive and negative views on UK Independence Party’s EU membership and the Human Rights Act policies in the comments below?
5. EU Membership and the Human Rights Act
5.1 It is difficult to properly enforce meaningful sanctions for criminal activity in light of the
European Union-inspired Human Rights Act 1998, which has been a major impediment to law enforcement. This Act was hailed by Attorney General Lord Goldsmith as the Labour Government’s ‘greatest achievement’.
5.2 Thanks to the Human Rights Act, a number of bizarre court rulings have handed more power to criminals, and resulted in a devastating loss of confidence in the justice system amongst the public. For example, nearly 200 drugs addicts won the right to sue the Government for refusing to allow them to use heroin in prison16. Human rights laws have also been used to allow 9 Afghans who hijacked a plane at gunpoint to remain in the UK rather than face deportation.
5.3 The UK Independence Party believes that human rights are a noble concept, which existed in the UK centuries before the EU came along. Since it was incorporated into UK law, the Act has Criminal Justice Policy done nothing but create legal chaos and embolden criminals to make increasingly obscene claims to have their ‘rights’ upheld.
5.4 UKIP would abolish the Human Rights Act. Unlike the EU, UKIP does not believe that criminals and their victims are moral equals, with equal claim to the same rights.
I personally believe that the Human Rights Act is a double-edged sword. It’s use in protecting criminals is heinous but it does allow those who are genuinely disadvantaged through some of our own insane laws / practices to have a final chance to fight their cause. Such a case for instance where we have increasing child-snatching by Social Services for some spurious undefined term as “Emotional Abuse” or “Risk of Emotional Harm”.
I personally would deem a criminal who having removed someone else’s rights to have deemed their own lost and therefore unable to rely on it.
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