Ex-minister warns European judges will 'continue to humiliate Britain' unless UK quits 'deeply flawed' ECHR

Ex-minister warns European judges will 'continue to humiliate Britain' unless UK quits 'deeply flawed' ECHR

WATCH: Jacob Rees-Mogg discusses the Rwanda Bill debate in the House of Lords

GB NEWS
Millie Cooke

By Millie Cooke


Published: 29/01/2024

- 15:16

Sarah Dines called for MPs and peers in the House of Lords to 'stop bending the knee to this institution'

Britain will continue to be "humiliated" by the "deeply flawed" ECHR unless the UK quits the convention, a former Home Office minister has warned.

Sarah Dines called for MPs and peers in the House of Lords to "stop bending the knee to this institution".


This comes amid ongoing speculation over whether or not the Government's Rwanda Bill, which is being debated in the House of Lords, will be held up by judges in Strasbourg.

Writing in the Telegraph, Dines said: "The reality is that, despite wishful thinking and long-rehearsed soundbites by their ideological supporters, both the Convention and Court were deeply controversial at their inception over 70 years ago and remain so today.

\u200bECHR President S\u00edofra O'Leary

ECHR President Síofra O'Leary warned that the UK would be in breach of the convention if it ignores rule 39 orders - something Rishi Sunak has threatened to do

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"There are those who point to the fact that Conservative statesmen and lawyers, including Winston Churchill and David Maxwell Fyfe, a future Lord Chancellor, were the midwives of the ECHR. This is true. What is also true is that if Churchill was about anything, it was that parliamentary sovereignty was supreme.

"He would be spinning in his grave at the way the convention has been corrupted in order to humiliate the United Kingdom in pursuit of Strasbourg’s NGO-driven agenda."

She added: "Another unassailable human rights grandee, Lord Lester QC, described what had passed for Strasbourg jurisprudence as 'standardless', 'as slippery and elusive as an eel' and 'a substitute for coherent legal analysis'.

"We should perhaps pay more attention to these views and less to those emanating from a deeply flawed Strasbourg body misinterpreting a convention designed for a very different time. It is time for some of my Parliamentary colleagues to stop bending the knee to this institution. The United Kingdom must leave the jurisdiction of this foreign court as soon as possible."

Last week, ECHR President Síofra O'Leary warned that the UK would be in breach of the convention if it ignores rule 39 orders - something Rishi Sunak has threatened to do.

Giving a press conference this morning, the EHCR President said the UK has a "clear legal obligation" to comply with rule 39 orders in its plan to send migrants to Rwanda, saying it would be "violating its obligations" if it ignores them.

Rule 39 orders were previously used to block the removal of migrants to Rwanda in June 2022.

She also pointed out that the UK has in the past encouraged other countries to fulfil their obligations under the ECHR, such as when it "urged the russian federation to comply with the court's rule 39 measures" in relation to the release of Alexei Navalny in 2021.

But hitting back at O'Leary's remarks, former Brexit negotiator Lord Frost told GB News: "It's a clear attempt to influence the UK's debate on the Rwanda Bill at a sensitive moment.

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"Many distinguished international lawyers would disagree with the President's views, as would I. She is entitled to her views and we are entitled to ignore them.

"It's important to disregard rule 39 orders if the Rwanda plan is to work and I hope that, if it comes to it, the government will act accordingly."

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