Samizdata

In the maelstrom of epic and terrible world events, prosaic, but nonetheless, important bits of news have a tendency to slip anonymously beneath the waves of sound and fury. Entirely understandable, I suppose, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t throw out a life-saver every now and then and haul one of the spluttering half-drowned items back in.

The man overboard in this case was an article which appeared in the Telegraph yesterday which covered a speech given by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf and during which he boldy opined that British Judges are not bound by decisions of the European Court in Strasbourg.

“”However, if we are satisfied that the Strasbourg jurisdiction is wrong we should be bold and either not follow or distinguish the Strasbourg decision. If that is what happens, we should take particular care to make clear why we have rejected the authority.”

This is significant because I cannot recall having heard any official or serious doubt cast upon universally-accepted position that British Courts are wholly beholden to Strasbourg. It is, if you will, a murmuring of dissent.

Of course, Lord Woolf stresses that conflict would be a rare thing:

“The Lord Chief Justice predicted that occasions when there would be a conflict between the House of Lords and Strasbourg were “likely to be few and far between”.

Maybe, maybe not. And, in his position, Lord Woolf could hardly suggest otherwise but the consequences of rejecting a Strasbourg ruling even once means that a precedent is set for further rejections and that kind of thing can so easily snowball to the point where, for all intents and purposes, Britain’s judiciary is independent again.

However, the champagne should be kept on ice for now. First of all, Lord Woolf is not a politician and cannot introduce legislation. He is the highest Judge in the land but this is not a ruling, merely an opinion and, as such, has no force of law. His colleagues in the House of Lords are free to reject his invitation but also may take him up on it and proceed accordingly.

Secondly, the entire address was couched in terms of the overriding concern for the rights and welfare of immigrants. This may have been due to the nature of the audience but could equally be the result of the obsession with ‘asylum-seekers’ that has taken a hold of our entire political and judicial class. Whilst it is not a damnable concern by any means, is it too much to ask that they consider the liberties and rights of the other 60 million people who live here? Still, one step at a time, I suppose.

Overall though, an address in which the country’s most senior Judge gives a green light to his fellow Judges to tell Europe to take a hike, must, on balance, be seen as positive.

I remember seeing an American-made TV movie thriller a few years ago where a young female babysitter, alone in a big house, receives threatening phonecalls from a psychotic killer. She calls the police who advise here to stay calm while they trace the origin of the calls. Meanwhile the abusive phonecalls from the killer grow more deranged and fenzied. Terrified out of her wits, she then receives a call back from the police telling her to get out of the house: they’ve traced the call and it’s coming from an upstairs bedroom!

Well, we’re all young female babysitters now; a transformation formally recognised by the Telegraph:

“Terrotist recruitment and fundraising by Islamic militants centred on a London mosque were ignored for years by the British security services, a former Special Branch informant claimed yesterday.”

Perhaps the spooks were on leave or something.

“While his British handlers preferred to keep a watching brief on the mosque, where the imam is the radical cleric Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri, the French became increasingly infuriated.

French counter-terrorism experts refer to the capital as “Londonistan” because of the number of wanted extremists who have sought and found safe haven there.”

We actually managed to infuriate the French through lack of action. Surely a world first?

“”The French felt British law was very, very soft on these people. Britain was looking at Irish terrorists; it couldn’t see the threat. It gave these people flats, benefits, passports, citizenship.”

That’s a relief. For a minute I was worried that some of their needs were not being fully catered for. Anything else required? Satellite TV? Chauffeur-driven limousine? Jacuzzi? Comfort girls?

As I type, Detectives from Scotland Yard are jetting off to Bali to look for terrorists. One wonders what, precisely, has been stopping them from taking a bus to Finsbury Park? And if any non-Britons are mystified as to how this bureacratic indifference on the home front squares with Tony Blair’s (quite genuine, I believe) hawkishness in the War on Terror, all I can say is, join the club.

Whatever the explanation (assuming there is one at all), we find ourselves in the tangled undergrowth of the most dangerous possible combination of tactics in response to Islamic terrorism: aggressive foreign policy and an inept domestic policy.

Those phonecalls are getting increasingly threatening. I sincerely hope we don’t all end up running from the house screaming.