(to the presenter of Newsnight on BBC2 - 8 February 2011)
Dear Mr Paxman,
I have just seen you on TV sporting your supposedly charming macho swagger, badmouthing the European Court for Human Rights. In all honesty, you seemed to be pandering to the lowest common xenophobic denominator with your ignorant comments about the Court:
- unelected judges: as if UK judges were elected, and as if this in any way compromised their integrity and independence.
- a Russian judge deciding on British cases brought to Court: well, British judges decide on Russian cases too. What is so surprising about that? Or are you suggesting that some nationalities are better than others when it comes to professional competence?
What your comments and snide remarks show is a total lack of understanding of how international (voluntary) communities of States work. When you sign up to a Treaty you accept the principle of give and take. Moreover, the Human Rights Convention is a standard setting Treaty that provides citizens of signatory countries with one last possibility for redress when their appeal efforts within national jurisdictions have been exhausted. You should ask the citizens who were able to obtain this redress against the judicial machines of their own countries, including the UK, how important the Court was in applying justice where it was needed.
Perhaps the UK - interestingly enough just like Russia - doesn't like to be reminded that it sometimes fails to protect its own citizens in accordance with its own and international human rights standards which it is supposed to uphold and promote? Maybe the UK doesn't like the Court because it provides its own citizens with the chance of redress when its own national jurisdiction has proved unfair or failed to do so?
Mr Paxman, you either accept the principle of an international community of values, with its attaining institutions, or you don't. You either accept that in a community of values everybody is entitled to enforce compliance with commonly agreed rules, or you don't. If the latter is the case, well, good riddance!
And by the way, leaving the Court and thus leaving the Council of Europe would have very direct implications on EU membership (i.e. withdrawal too). Again, if that is the UK's wish, good riddance!
