This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/on-liberty-shami-chakrabarti-review-freedom-human-rights

The article has changed 2 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
On Liberty by Shami Chakrabarti – 'I don't trust the powerful' On Liberty by Shami Chakrabarti – 'I don't trust the powerful'
(about 3 hours later)
So here we are again, those of us who lived through 9/11 and its aftermath; back at the dark crossroads we now know all too well. Once again, we are being warned of a terrorist threat greater than any of the previous "threats greater than", this time from Isis. Once again, politicians itch to assume greater powers at home, whether it is stripping murderous British jihadis of their rights as citizens or – as Boris Johnson casually suggested this summer – scrapping the presumption of innocence for anyone caught travelling to Iraq or Syria without prior notice, leaving them presumed guilty of terrorist intent unless they can prove otherwise. There could be no better time to reflect on what happens when freedoms are sacrificed, even when it is done with the best of intentions. All of these factors make Shami Chakrabarti's On Liberty that rarest of things, a history not overtaken by fast-moving events but enriched by them; a book that gains deeper meaning and urgency from the things it did not actually foretell. "I do not trust the powerful," she writes. But not, she stresses, because they are inherently venal: only because they are as human as the rest of us, with the same flaws and fears.So here we are again, those of us who lived through 9/11 and its aftermath; back at the dark crossroads we now know all too well. Once again, we are being warned of a terrorist threat greater than any of the previous "threats greater than", this time from Isis. Once again, politicians itch to assume greater powers at home, whether it is stripping murderous British jihadis of their rights as citizens or – as Boris Johnson casually suggested this summer – scrapping the presumption of innocence for anyone caught travelling to Iraq or Syria without prior notice, leaving them presumed guilty of terrorist intent unless they can prove otherwise. There could be no better time to reflect on what happens when freedoms are sacrificed, even when it is done with the best of intentions. All of these factors make Shami Chakrabarti's On Liberty that rarest of things, a history not overtaken by fast-moving events but enriched by them; a book that gains deeper meaning and urgency from the things it did not actually foretell. "I do not trust the powerful," she writes. But not, she stresses, because they are inherently venal: only because they are as human as the rest of us, with the same flaws and fears.
She should know. The gamekeeper-turned-poacher of the civil liberties movement is a former Home Office lawyer who defected from what she only half-jokingly calls the kingdom of Mordor to run the pressure group Liberty. On her second day in the new office, the planes hit the Twin Towers. Over the following 13 years she has carved a niche for herself as the calm and rational voice of liberal British conscience: the radical who does not frighten the horses, adept at explaining high legal concepts in everyday language. She is admirable in print, just as she is on the Today programme, taking the kneejerk populist position on contemporary controversies – detention without charge, anti-social behaviour, privacy – and picking it to bits. Really? You would do this? So what about this unintended consequence? What if it were applied not to people you dislike but to you, or your family? What makes you so sure it could never be? The argument is based as much on enlightened self-interest as lofty ideals, on the idea that if governments can get away with trampling over the rights of the unpopular, then sooner or later they will trash everyone's. And if that sounds a little bland and pious, it does not come across that way on the page.She should know. The gamekeeper-turned-poacher of the civil liberties movement is a former Home Office lawyer who defected from what she only half-jokingly calls the kingdom of Mordor to run the pressure group Liberty. On her second day in the new office, the planes hit the Twin Towers. Over the following 13 years she has carved a niche for herself as the calm and rational voice of liberal British conscience: the radical who does not frighten the horses, adept at explaining high legal concepts in everyday language. She is admirable in print, just as she is on the Today programme, taking the kneejerk populist position on contemporary controversies – detention without charge, anti-social behaviour, privacy – and picking it to bits. Really? You would do this? So what about this unintended consequence? What if it were applied not to people you dislike but to you, or your family? What makes you so sure it could never be? The argument is based as much on enlightened self-interest as lofty ideals, on the idea that if governments can get away with trampling over the rights of the unpopular, then sooner or later they will trash everyone's. And if that sounds a little bland and pious, it does not come across that way on the page.
Perhaps the most startling chapter in the book is when she takes on the old saloon-bar challenge about torture: suppose there was a nuclear bomb ticking somewhere in London and you were alone in a room with the person who planted it, surely you would torture them to find out where it was and save countless lives? Interestingly, her answer is not "no". It is that if she did get out the thumbscrews, she should not expect the protection of the law. "If I choose the path of cruelty over ingenuity and therefore save millions, I will no doubt throw myself on the mercy of a jury and seek a perverse acquittal in the face of the law and evidence against me … But for fantasy scenarios where dark practices are acceptable and routine not to become reality, I must be required to weight the grave potential consequences for me alongside those of the suspect." In other words, any of us might resort to appalling behaviour in extremis; but we should expect to be punished for it. The law cannot always make it easy to do the right thing, but should never make it easy to do the wrong thing. There is an elegant legal mind at work here, but one still in touch with emotional reality. Perhaps the most startling chapter in the book is when she takes on the old saloon-bar challenge about torture: suppose there was a nuclear bomb ticking somewhere in London and you were alone in a room with the person who planted it, surely you would torture them to find out where it was and save countless lives? Interestingly, her answer is not "no". It is that if she did get out the thumbscrews, she should not expect the protection of the law. "If I choose the path of cruelty over ingenuity and therefore save millions, I will no doubt throw myself on the mercy of a jury and seek a perverse acquittal in the face of the law and evidence against me … But for fantasy scenarios where dark practices are acceptable and routine not to become reality, I must be required to weigh the grave potential consequences for me alongside those of the suspect." In other words, any of us might resort to appalling behaviour in extremis; but we should expect to be punished for it. The law cannot always make it easy to do the right thing, but should never make it easy to do the wrong thing. There is an elegant legal mind at work here, but one still in touch with emotional reality.
It is hard to get a sense of where these views were formed: Chakrabarti is a self-effacing narrator, giving away remarkably little. The few brief references to her private life – such as her anger and mortification when she was preposterously accused, at the height of tensions between Liberty and a Labour government, of being seduced by "heart-melting" phone calls from the Tory MP David Davis – feel somehow as if they have been extracted at editorial gunpoint. Her final chapter, reflecting on multiculturalism from the personal perspective of a British Asian Londoner, is arguably the woolliest part of what is an otherwise intellectually crisp book. Unusually, her inside accounts of how legislation has been made tend, if anything, to downplay her own political influence, portraying any victories for the Liberty cause as collective triumphs in which elected politicians are the stars. One is left with the impression less of a noisy campaigner than of a rather shrewd lobbyist, the sort who prefers to leave people thinking it was all their idea.It is hard to get a sense of where these views were formed: Chakrabarti is a self-effacing narrator, giving away remarkably little. The few brief references to her private life – such as her anger and mortification when she was preposterously accused, at the height of tensions between Liberty and a Labour government, of being seduced by "heart-melting" phone calls from the Tory MP David Davis – feel somehow as if they have been extracted at editorial gunpoint. Her final chapter, reflecting on multiculturalism from the personal perspective of a British Asian Londoner, is arguably the woolliest part of what is an otherwise intellectually crisp book. Unusually, her inside accounts of how legislation has been made tend, if anything, to downplay her own political influence, portraying any victories for the Liberty cause as collective triumphs in which elected politicians are the stars. One is left with the impression less of a noisy campaigner than of a rather shrewd lobbyist, the sort who prefers to leave people thinking it was all their idea.
But occasionally, formative influences can be glimpsed. Her Indian-born parents were, she lets slip, attacked by racist skinheads while pushing her as a baby in her pram; she concedes that "coming from the British Asian family" she knows how people have been degraded and dehumanised in the name of immigration control. And then she recounts the grim story of how in the 1970s, young Hindu brides entering Britain were physically examined at Heathrow to see if they were virgins. (The assumption was that if they were not, they were probably sham brides, marrying for a British passport.) That is what you get without a Human Rights Act, she suggests; that's what you get for thinking common sense and human decency alone are enough to get us through.But occasionally, formative influences can be glimpsed. Her Indian-born parents were, she lets slip, attacked by racist skinheads while pushing her as a baby in her pram; she concedes that "coming from the British Asian family" she knows how people have been degraded and dehumanised in the name of immigration control. And then she recounts the grim story of how in the 1970s, young Hindu brides entering Britain were physically examined at Heathrow to see if they were virgins. (The assumption was that if they were not, they were probably sham brides, marrying for a British passport.) That is what you get without a Human Rights Act, she suggests; that's what you get for thinking common sense and human decency alone are enough to get us through.
And that argument is really the crux of this book. The resurfacing of a militant Islamic threat may have given it a fresh context, but it was clearly originally written as a shot over the bows of senior Conservatives keen to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if they win a second term. Chakrabarti wants to make them feel there is something here worth cherishing, something that cannot be cherry-picked for the politically appealin are, she notes, are all for human rights law where it provides a legal basis for war – as it did in Iraq and may again in Syria – but not when it asks them to accept refugees from such conflicts.) She is clearly frustrated that Theresa May, having chosen to take the legal high road over deporting Abu Qatada rather than succumbing to backbench pressure to get rid of him with few questions asked, could not have the courage of her apparent convictions and claim his eventual departure as a victory for doing things by the book. (Instead, May went on to deliver a rabble-rousing attack on human rights law to the Conservative party conference.) And that argument is really the crux of this book. The resurfacing of a militant Islamic threat may have given it a fresh context, but it was clearly originally written as a shot over the bows of senior Conservatives keen to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if they win a second term. Chakrabarti wants to make them feel there is something here worth cherishing, something that cannot be cherry-picked for the politically appealing bits. (Western governments, she notes, are all for human rights law where it provides a legal basis for war – as it did in Iraq and may again in Syria – but not when it asks them to accept refugees from such conflicts.) She is clearly frustrated that Theresa May, having chosen to take the legal high road over deporting Abu Qatada rather than succumbing to backbench pressure to get rid of him with few questions asked, could not have the courage of her apparent convictions and claim his eventual departure as a victory for doing things by the book. (Instead, May went on to deliver a rabble-rousing attack on human rights law to the Conservative party conference.)
Yet that episode illustrates, in a way, the sheer scale of what civil libertarians are up against: growing hostility to anything European, a new public harshness toward many of the vulnerable groups protected by the ECHR, and politicians increasingly nervous about challenging either of those attitudes. While the already converted will lap up On Liberty, I suspect it won't change hardened rightwing minds. But you will read few clearer statements of the battle lines, and why they matter. This is an important book. Fingers crossed the new attorney general reads it.Yet that episode illustrates, in a way, the sheer scale of what civil libertarians are up against: growing hostility to anything European, a new public harshness toward many of the vulnerable groups protected by the ECHR, and politicians increasingly nervous about challenging either of those attitudes. While the already converted will lap up On Liberty, I suspect it won't change hardened rightwing minds. But you will read few clearer statements of the battle lines, and why they matter. This is an important book. Fingers crossed the new attorney general reads it.
• To order On Liberty for £13.99 (RRP £18.99), go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846.• To order On Liberty for £13.99 (RRP £18.99), go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846.