Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-06-16-Speech-3-421"
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"en.20100616.28.3-421"2
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"Mr President, I have no doubt that all of us here are in favour of human rights. Indeed, many of these are rooted in the finest traditions of English laws – such as the Magna Carta of 1215, which outlawed arbitrary imprisonment, and the work of the British lawyers who wrote much of the European Convention on Human Rights after the war.
But it seems that a worthy agenda of human rights has now been hijacked by greedy lawyers and political opportunists. Over the water from the UK, here in Strasbourg, sits the European Court of Human Rights. Now its Committee of Ministers has ruled that Britain must overturn its ban on allowing prisoners to vote because it violates the human rights of prisoners.
But are human rights not meant to protect decent, law-abiding citizens, not terrorists, hijackers, murderers and law-breakers? Is it really any court’s job to ask us, as politicians, to seek votes from the likes of Ian Huntley, the paedophile who murdered two little girls in Soham, in my constituency? Is it justice to seek his approval? Is it right to knock on the cell door of Rose West, a serial killer, securing her support? And what of Abu Qatada, Bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe? Who will he be voting for? Possibly the Liberal Democrats, because they support this nonsense!
Yet, seriously, these large prison populations could swing marginal votes, especially at the local level. So there should be no equivalence of rights between decent, law-abiding citizens and those of murderers and criminals. They forfeited their right to participate in the political process when they took other people’s lives, other people’s rights and other people’s property. What about the rights of victims? What about human responsibilities rather than just rights? Like the euro, I believe the currency of human rights is rapidly being debased. We need a return to good common sense."@en1
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