Deporting Abu Qatada: the European Court of Human Rights, and Governments 

Excellent and detailed explanation! Thank you Professor, thank you Cambridge!

Great stuff. Thank you.

Whatever happened to the social responsibility of governments? Particularly ones that know better.

I do not believe any memo's of understanding, or deportation of Abu Qatada towards Jordan by any method; could protect him from torture. The definition of torture can so easily be changed or whatever; there are so many ways to circumvent rules, even where they are written into the law.

😮😮😮

This is outrageous. Professor Feldman seems to think that this is primarily an argument between the states rights and those of the individual. It is obvious to anyone who has followed this that this is not the case. The resentment and anger was not felt by the lawyers ,it was felt by public opinion and they were angry that limitless time and money was spent defending this individual and that as this money was paid by the public to the lawyers that they did not have a say in the matter. a matter which they felt was anyway largely decided by the actions and words of the individual. And I think the public and not the lawyers were right. Abu Qatada advocated sharia law and the right of muslims to be tried by sharia law anywhere in the world. It follows that he could not accept or agree with the findings of a court whose decisions were reached by some other legal system based on human rights . Futhermore these systems could not ultimately agree because they are founded on two conflicting versions of morality. The obvious solution then was,in this case, to allow him to be tried under the system of law which he supported and that he be sent to a part of the world where this could be done . They did not do this. They were not interested in Abu Qatada,s human rights which would have been satisfied by this simple solution. The only thing which interested these lawyers was the extension of the power and reach of their court and so they made it a condition that he could only be tried by a court which had signed up the the convention on human rights and was ultimately dependent on their interpretation. The conclusion eventually reached with the provisions against torture was the only possible conclusion that could be reached and so why did it take so long to arrive at it ? Lawyers are increasingly distanced from the public they are there to serve. How many people reading this knew about the Grand Chamber of the court which stepped into this case ? One of the arguments that used t be advanced against judges was that they operated in a world that was remote from the world of the ordinary citizen.This has now got a whole lot worse.