Author: Leo McKinstry
Publication: The Times
Date: May 12, 2006
URL: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2176604,00.html
Mr Justice Sullivan is lucky he is not facing
a prosecution for perverting the course of justice after his extraordinary
decision to give a bunch of Afghan hijackers the right to settle in Britain.
The High Court judge's ludicrous ruling makes a mockery of the law, treats
the public with contempt and sends out the message that our country is a haven
for gun-toting hostage-takers.
Any normal, morally self-confident system
would hold that a gangster who smuggles guns and explosives on to a plane
and then threatens to kill all the passengers had abnegated any claim to have
his human rights treated seriously. But our bewigged, complacent judges seem
to inhabit an alternative moral universe, a place of legalistic quibbling
and abstract theorising, where all common sense has been abandoned and the
rights of foreign criminals are given priority over the interests and security
of the public.
Indeed, it is sometimes hard to know whose
side the civic authorities are on. Citizens are constantly bullied and threatened
with imprisonment for driving too fast, failing to pay a TV licence, falling
behind with the council tax, dropping a crisp packet or holding unfashionable
views about cultural diversity and homosexuality.
Yet a gang of Afghan Muslims, without any
connection to Britain, can hijack a plane and threaten mass murder, only to
find themselves rewarded not only with the right to live here, but also with
a string of welfare benefits. It is estimated that the British taxpayer has
been forking out at least £150,000 a year to feed and house the hijackers
while their legal cases were processed. In total, more than £10 million,
including the usual exorbitant legal fees, has been spent on this wretched
gang.
This grim saga encapsulates so much that has
gone wrong with the governance of Britain: pathetically short sentences for
criminals; lawyers earning a fortune by parading their synthetic compassion;
epic welfare profligacy; and thugs laughing at our craven surrender to their
brutality.
Tony Blair is now ranting against the judiciary,
but his Government is largely to blame for making such a fetish of human rights,
symbolised by the Human Rights Act 1998 that acted as the catalyst for this
judicial revolution. Only a fortnight ago, Mr Blair promised to "hassle,
harry and hound" foreign criminals out of the country. How laughably
hollow those words now look.
