Human Rights Lawyers to be Given Field-Day in Court by Legal Ruling
Civitas, 19 May 2009
Yesterday, the Court of Appeal ruled that the Human Rights Act extends to British soldiers serving overseas. As a result of yesterday’s decision, if a British soldier dies while on tour overseas, whether through combat or illness, his or her family will be able to sue the Ministry of Defence for the right to life of their relative having been breached.
A soldier’s death overseas will not alone render the MoD liable for damages. It will also be necessary to establish its contributory negligence or some other form of contributory malfeasance, either on its part or on that of some field-officer.
I confess to having considerable sympathy with the reaction to yesterday’s decision of the former head of the British Army, Sir Mike Jackson. He reportedly told the Times:
‘It’s potentially very dangerous and could damage operational effectiveness because commanding officers will be concerned that they run the risk of being taken to court over decisions they have had to made.’
A letter in today’s edition of the same newspaper written by a retired group captain makes some other very pertinent observations about yesterday’s Appeal Court decision. He points out that, had that it been in force during the last war, commanders would have found it impossible ‘to send fighter Command aircraft – outnumbered, outgunned and often outperformed by their Luftwaffe equivalents– into the Battle of Britain.’ He goes on to enquire very perceptively: ‘If this had been the case, I wonder what human rights legislation would be in force now?’
This High Court decision is going to give human rights lawyers a field-day in court, as they second-guess commanding officers for decisions they may have made in the heat of the battle that have led to British fatalities.
It is another reason why this terrible and unnecessary act needs to be repealed at the earliest opportunity.
Mind you, before it is, I have a suggestion. Who is going to be the first parent whose child has been consigned to one of the mini-hell-holes that pass for a school today going to be the first to sue their local education authority for beaching their child’s human right to an education? There’s a thought for some wealthy right-minded citizen wanting to shake up the country’s education system by supporting such a test case.
The Schools Adjudicator has confirmed that Fair Access Protocols within the Schools Admissions Code can apply to gifted children. However, the Adjudicator also claims not to have power of enforcement, despite it being explicitly stated in 4.1 of the code.
Neo-Stalinist bureaucrats, most of whom have no professional education or psychology-based credentials whatever, are free to ruin the lives of gifted children by ignoring their need for appropriate intellectual stimulation within normal school hours.
Is this article a joke? Lawyer bashing – how original. Repealing the Human Rights Act – so the UK should cease to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights as well? If you like being tortured and having your property seized without compensation, then please don’t inflict that on the rest of us.
With regard to the question of education and legal responsibility, I have been personally told that gifted children are not recognised in law as having special needs.
The author of an article on such children referred to them as the “last minority”, inasmuch as they lack the protection afforded to other minority groups – religious, ethnic – within the educational system.
The head of a group within Mensa, dealing with the question of education, once told me how her son-in-law, himself a teacher, had once told her that most teachers “resent” such children.
There was a front-page article in the “Telegraph”, earlier this year, referring to a survey, commissioned by what used to be the Ministry of Education, which showed that many teachers were refusing to submit the names of their brightest pupils for special tuition, for fear of being accused of fostering “elitism”.
If members of any of the other professions were to ignore the needs of their clients in such a way, they were surely end up facing charges.
Time for things to change, perhaps?
“The law’s delay, the insolence of office…”