The debate over the future of the Human Rights Act (‘HRA’) has been somewhat surreal. The Labour position is schizophrenic. Labour introduced the Act but was justifiably accused of violating most of its principles in its obsession with security. But...
One would think that it’s the Battle of Britain all over again. On 21 November 2012 the Daily Mail carried the headline “Defiant Chris Grayling says Britain can ignore Strasbourg fines if we ban prisoners from having the vote”. Cameron said that the idea of...
Yet another massacre is unfolding in Gaza, the largest prison in the world.* We are surrounded by familiar chatter: ‘Israel’s right to defend itself’; ‘Palestinians’ legitimate resistance to (the 1967) occupation’; ‘who started it this time?’ Most insidious, however,...
I wake up in the middle of the night to go check on my child. She breathes, she makes little sleep-noises. I leave the room. Again, half-an hour later I go back to check if she is alright. If she still breathes. I go back again and again through the night because...
November 15, 2012 Gaza. As I begin to write this piece my computer falls from my hands to the floor as a bomb drops meters from the Abousalama family home in Saftawi neighborhood, Gaza, Palestine. I have grown accustom to the loud blast of bombs being dropped around...
This morning (14 November 2012) the Guardian reports on the case of Savita Halappanavar, who died last month at University College Galway, Ireland. It was, we are told, a case of “sudden maternal death”. The Irish Times sets out the facts of the case as...
