19 Oct · Wed 2005
A small apology
Entries to this blog have been a bit sparse over the last week, because I'm halfway round the world at the moment, attending the Liberty Sponsors' meeting in Singapore. It's a tough job, I know, but they asked for a volunteer. It's very warm and rainy here, but fascinating. The Singapore approach to municipal bedding plants is also interesting: in England you get some begonias, daisies salvias and the like. Over here it's 20-foot palm trees, cannas and the fabulous Strelitzia or 'bird of paradise' plant.
What's the difference between deporting and exporting?
In a characteristically oblique fashion, here's the UK Foreign Office press release about an accord recently signed with Libya about the UK policy of deporting undesirables. The Foreign Office has the unenviable task of communicating UK policy to other governments, no matter how unappealing the contents of the policy in question. That is partly why its diplomats have such a reputation for nuanced phrasing, once described to me as "the ability to tell someone to go to Hell in such a way that they feel they would benefit from the journey".
In this press release, you'll notice that it's the Government which is said to have a firm belief that this is a good idea (not the Foreign Office or the Foreign Secretary, who are the ones who deal with other governments daily). The press release also skates proficiently around the main issue, which is the likelihood of harm to those deported in this way. The MOU is intended as a sop to the Courts, who are uneasy about sentencing anyone to be deported to a country where they are likely to face harm. The MOU "should enable the British Courts to allow" deportations. How generous that makes it sound.
Of course, the British Courts and the UK Government have powers to deport undesirables already --- witness the deportation under the Immigration Act 1971 I referred to in a previous entry. However, it is also under international restrictions about sending deportees back to regimes where their human rights are likely to be infringed. Naturally those countries are often the ones which decline to be bound by the international restrictions in question... so how much attention they are likely to pay to a bilateral MOU remains to be seen. I don't think I would enjoy being a guinea-pig in that particular test.
None of this addresses the other underlying question about this policy, which is that if you think someone is genuinely a threat to national security, and you're prepared to prosecute them on that basis, why on earth would you export them beyond the reach of your own jurisdiction and law enforcement?
Posted by racingsnake
@ 07:31 AM GMT+00:00
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