Right-Wing Dutch MP banned entry into the UK and a Landmark Case in British Constitutional Law
DOWNLOAD: Fitna (w/ English subtitles), 33MB
I've just finished watching Fitna, the fifteen minute video about Islamic extremism put together by Geert Wilders, the Dutch MP who has been denied entry into the UK this morning because of a British Home Secretary ban. Wilders was due to attend a screening of his video at the House of Lords today through an invitation from a UK Independence Party peer. Now I don't know much about this guy but in general I'm not a huge fan of the discretionary powers available to the Home Secretary. My understanding this year has been that the courts are in general averse to interfering with the Home Secretary's decision to deny entry to specific individuals, even if they seek judicial intervention. Perhaps most recently and most famously there is the case of Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader, who failed to overturn his long-term ban through the courts in 2002. And though it's not directly related, today's news has reminded me of a famous case in British Constitutional Law that was the sole subject of an exam I did a few weeks ago.
Liversidge v. Anderson is a landmark case from 1941/2 involving the relationship between the courts and the State. Basically a British Jewish businessman was apprehended without charge through a regulation that gave the British Home Secretary discretionary powers to intern anybody if he/she had "reasonable cause" to believe that they had 'hostile associations.' As this was in the middle of WWII, Britain had declared itself to be in a state of national emergency. The case made its way through the courts till it reached the House of Lords, the highest (appeals) court in the land. The challenge before the five judges was to determine whether the wording of the regulation and in particular ("has reasonable cause to believe") afforded the Home Secretary with special extra-judicial powers due to the state of national emergency. Four of the judges presented lengthy arguments accepting the Home Secretary's use of the regulation while Lord Atkin delivered what has become a famous dissenting judgment. The case is more than fifty pages long but it is one of the most fascinating things I have ever read. Each judgment had an interesting take on principles of civil liberties, justice and separation of powers. For example this is what Lord Wright had to say about liberty and freedom:
I've just finished watching Fitna, the fifteen minute video about Islamic extremism put together by Geert Wilders, the Dutch MP who has been denied entry into the UK this morning because of a British Home Secretary ban. Wilders was due to attend a screening of his video at the House of Lords today through an invitation from a UK Independence Party peer. Now I don't know much about this guy but in general I'm not a huge fan of the discretionary powers available to the Home Secretary. My understanding this year has been that the courts are in general averse to interfering with the Home Secretary's decision to deny entry to specific individuals, even if they seek judicial intervention. Perhaps most recently and most famously there is the case of Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader, who failed to overturn his long-term ban through the courts in 2002. And though it's not directly related, today's news has reminded me of a famous case in British Constitutional Law that was the sole subject of an exam I did a few weeks ago.
Liversidge v. Anderson is a landmark case from 1941/2 involving the relationship between the courts and the State. Basically a British Jewish businessman was apprehended without charge through a regulation that gave the British Home Secretary discretionary powers to intern anybody if he/she had "reasonable cause" to believe that they had 'hostile associations.' As this was in the middle of WWII, Britain had declared itself to be in a state of national emergency. The case made its way through the courts till it reached the House of Lords, the highest (appeals) court in the land. The challenge before the five judges was to determine whether the wording of the regulation and in particular ("has reasonable cause to believe") afforded the Home Secretary with special extra-judicial powers due to the state of national emergency. Four of the judges presented lengthy arguments accepting the Home Secretary's use of the regulation while Lord Atkin delivered what has become a famous dissenting judgment. The case is more than fifty pages long but it is one of the most fascinating things I have ever read. Each judgment had an interesting take on principles of civil liberties, justice and separation of powers. For example this is what Lord Wright had to say about liberty and freedom:
- "All the courts to-day, and not least this House, are as jealous as they have ever been in upholding the liberty of the subject. That liberty, however is a liberty confined and controlled by law, whether common law or statute. It is in Burke's words, a regulated freedom. It is not an abstract or absolute freedom. Parliament is supreme. It can enact extraordinary powers of interfering with personal liberty. [...] In the constitution of England, however, there are no guaranteed or absolute rights. The safeguard of British liberty is in the good sense of the people and in the system of representative and responsible government which has been evolved. If extraordinary powers are here given, they are given because the emergency is extraordinary, and they are limited to the period of the emergency."