Counter-terrorism counter-productive if it violates rights
I've written previously of my admiration for Australia's man-in-London, human rights giant Geoffrey Robertson QC. There's another Australian member of the bar I adore: that cultured man of compassion, the erudite and articulate Mr Julian Burnside, who, in and beyond his impressive legal practice in Melbourne, works tirelessly to promote human rights. Despite a large venue, one simply could not get a ticket for Robertson and Burnside's joint performance at the Melbourne Writers' Festival in August last year, when they addressed the topic, 'Whatever happened to human rights?'
Also appearing on that sold-out triple bill was Irish barrister Brendan Kilty. His contribution that day led to an ongoing relationship with the human rights movement in Australia. He is now international patron of the European arm of the campaign for an Australian Bill of Rights. Interviewed on Australia's Radio National last month, Kilty's comment on the 'rights v. security' debate is worth quoting:
"Going back to what we euphemistically here [in Ireland] call 'The Troubles', there were a great many patent miscarriages of justice because of the security scare factor. People needed to be rounded up; convictions and examples needed to be obtained and delivered. And as a result, patent injustices took place. I don't think anyone, whatever their politics, would support those injustices. A proper Bill of Rights is a safeguard against injustices.
"Don't forget that if somebody is wrongfully convicted — where you have a dilution of human rights — what it actually means is that the guilty person has gotten off scot-free, because once we have someone for that particular job, we might tend to stop looking. So it is, in fact, damaging to security in the longer term to say, 'Let's abandon all principles of human rights because of the security issue.'"
[…] This disturbing shift in values and practice is, I expect, a post-9/11 phenomenon. And the reason for it is probably fear that one guilty person slipping through the net has the potential to do great harm to many (innocents). While that may be true, we are made no safer by mistakenly convicting innocent people if the search for the real villains is thereby called off, as Brendan Kilty describes occurring in the fight against terrorism in Northern Ireland. We all benefit from fair trials, due process and the highest possible chance of a correct verdict. […]