Alec Samuels puts the case for the reform of European human rights law
The English legal system served us fairly well before the advent of European human rights. European human rights law has created a vast body of jurisprudence, an extra tier in litigation, and has produced a number of problems and anomalies and even abuses.
National security
Nothing can be more important in national life than public safety and national security. Is it not for the UK Parliament to determine the degree of infringement of personal liberty, eg control orders against suspected terrorists, telephone tapping, retention of criminal records, with the appropriate judicial safeguards?
Deportation
A convicted foreign national was ordered to be deported. Anticipating conviction and deportation he married a UK citizen and pleaded family hardship (Art 8). A criminal conviction often inflicts hardship upon the family, a regrettable consequence.
Sex offender
A foreign national was convicted of sexual offences and ordered to be deported. Because sexual offences were not well regarded in his own state he pleaded threat to life and threat of inhuman or degrading treatment (Arts 2 and
