A pity that Parliament as a whole didn't take this line

[major_clanger]

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights recently published its report (HTML version, PDF version) on the compatibility of the Terrorism Act 2006 with the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism.

It will make very interesting reading for anyone interested in the 'Glorifying Terrorism" issue. To quote the report's conclusion:

"...we wish in our conclusion to emphasise our view that the combination of the breadth of the definition of "terrorism", the vagueness of "glorification", and the lack of a requirement that there be at least a danger that an act of terrorism will result, makes the encouragement of terrorism offence in section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006 incompatible with the requirement in Article 12 of the Convention that the establishment of any new offence of public provocation to commit a terrorist offence be compatible with the right to freedom of expression, and proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued. In our view the offence as defined in section 1 is likely to have a disproportionate impact on freedom of expression, contrary to the express requirement in Article 12.

We therefore conclude that, on the current state of the law, the Government cannot and should not ratify the Convention because our domestic law is not compatible with it. We draw this matter to the attention of each House."

Comments

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

It was without the remit of this committee to recommend that UK law be brought into line with the new Convention, instead?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Not directly, because after all Parliament has passed the legislation in question. So, strictly speaking all the Committee can do is to observe that Parliament has managed to pass an Act that is incompatible with the treaty it is meant to enact. But given that the implication is that either:

- Parliament should not ratify the Convention, or

- Parliament should amend the law,

then in effect it is advising that the second option is the one to go for.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

We have this slightly dangerous idea that Parliament cannot make law that prevents Parliament from making some new law in the future, and at times it has seemed as if Nu-Lab have been cheerfully exploiting this freedome for all they're worth. The whole business of "glorifying terrorism" looks pretty dodgy under the Human Rights Act, but even though the first Blair government passed it, we have nothing in our system to say they can't ignore it with new laws.

But at least all that means that any Act bringing this convention into UK law could slip in an amendment to the 2006 Act, which would have the political bonus of allowing everyone to smugly blame Europe.

My family has a couple of connections with the Wright family, one of them farming Twigmoor Hall, a particular den of iniquity in Kit Wright's time. The current Parliament make it really easy to think that Mr. Wright and his associates had the right idea.