Today, as a result of legal action taken by Liberty, the European Court of Human Rights has declared that S.44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is in violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The law will now need to be amended to comply with the court's ruling. Full details here.

Hurrah!

That's one in the arm for the Euroskeptics then.

The government will no doubt appeal this. So don’t get too excited yet.

Appeal it to who?

It's happened already.

Mark

Well here's hoping they lose...again. Evidently I need to brush up on my ECHR proceedings, I had no idea you could appeal an ECHR ruling.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5gTs8xf9Jm2fCMJX1GLkGF_-KOcsw
Okay, so the government's only considering an appeal at the moment, but on this issue I really do not see it rolling over and accepting the edict from the EU on this.

Mark

It has got NOTHING to do with the European Union. NOTHING.

But everything to do with human rights.

Mark

Eh? The EU and ECHR and entirely separate entities.

Dude, I'm just saying it as I see it.
Different police forces around the UK appear to not know what the correct procedure is, so random stop and searches have been taking place that are quite literally against the law.
Despite repeatedly being told by their superiors not to stop someone unless there's a very real possibility that the person may be involved in terrorist recon. the police still stop and search for no good reason.
This has to stop. Weather that's through directive of the EU or through the ECHR I don't see that it matters.
It might have nothing to do with the EU, but when the UK police forces are breaking the law themselves something has to be done.

Mark

Oh I agree, I'm just pointing out the difference between the EU and the ECHR - a distinction that even the broadsheets fail to realise sometimes.

A phrase that gets used over here a lot (though in a different context) is 'inextricably linked', which is probably how a lot of people view it all, rightly or wrongly

They have literally absolutely nothing to do with each other. Idiots just assume that because they both involve the word "Europe" that they're the same.

They assume it's all part of the one agenda maybe. Such thoughts wouldn't even have much impact if it wasn't for our politicians being quite divided or fudging the issue on further integration with Europe (however you wanna see that), the crappy press here, and what seems to be a best of three approach or something to Lisbon...