Deportee appeal rights to end

People being deported from the UK will soon no longer be able to turn to the European Court of Human Rights and appeal against the decision made by the British Government, according to the Justice Secretary.

The Daily Telegraph reported that Ken Clarke has said an agreement will be reached next year to prevent people from challenging any deportation ruling. A conference scheduled for April will make agreement on it.

The Telegraph quoted the minister as saying he wants an end to scenarios in which "everybody who's just lost his arguments about deportation should be able to go (to the European court) and get in the queue, wait a few years to get it all reheard again when he's lost the argument three times already".

In an interview with the newspaper, Mr Clarke said: "What we are trying to do is get the role of the court sorted out so that it deals with serious human rights issues of the kind that require an international court.

"We want the court back to its proper business as an international court which takes up serious issues of principle when a member state or its courts or its parliament are arguably in serious breach of the (European Human Rights) convention."

The UK now chairs the Council of Europe which oversees the human rights court, a position it will hold for the next six months.

Mr Clark went on: "To get any decision out of any international body usually takes at least 20 years. You would take the first two years trying to agree to where to put the commas in the memorandum. (But) it's not like that."

He insisted: "A lot of member states have been pushing for similar things and a lot of them believe a British chairmanship is the best time to deliver it. And they think we're the best hope of drawing this to a conclusion.

"The term human rights, it gets misused. There is a tendency in this country for the words human rights to get thrown about as much as health and safety. Both of them get hopelessly misused. When some official, some policeman, whoever, has made some mistake in taking some absurd decision, the first thing they do to fend off criticism is to blame it on health and safety and blame it on human rights. The truth is that someone's made a pig's ear in the office."

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