1/ Today is the 7th anniversary of one of the most important and notorious UK human rights cases ever. I think we need to keep talking about it, even if it’s uncomfortable for advocates of the human rights system. Here’s why.

— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) January 17, 2018

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2/ I don’t think there is another case which has been used as much as this one to “prove” that human rights have gone wrong, that they are not for “us” but for “them”. Can you guess which I’m talking about? Here are some clues… pic.twitter.com/iNzbFHM6j7

— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) January 17, 2018

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3/ Yes it’s Abu Qatada. A much-hated Islamist preacher who supported ideas of terrorism and potentially actual terrorists, although he was never charged or convicted for a terror-related offence. He arrived a a refugee in 1993 but by the 2000s the UK had had enough of him

— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) January 17, 2018

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4/ He was involved in two important human rights cases. One, the so-called ‘Belmarsh Case’ where the Law Lords said that it was a breach of the right to a fair trial to detain people for years without charge for security reasons, even in the threat of Islamist terror.

— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) January 17, 2018

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5/ The 2nd was his human rights challenge to deportation to Jordan. It went on for years. Ultimately it came down to this: there was a real risk that if he was sent back to Jordan, he would be tortured and evidence obtained by torture would be used in a trial again him pic.twitter.com/S0mM5bbYk4

— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) January 17, 2018

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6/ He was deported to Jordan in the end. The (then) Home Secretary Theresa May negotiated a change in the Jordanian constitution and assurances that torture evidence would not be used and he would not be tortured.

— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) January 17, 2018

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7/ People still remember Abu Qatada’s case as an example of “human rights gone wrong”. But there is another way of looking at it. Dostoyevsky wrote “the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” I think there is a wider truth too…

— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) January 17, 2018

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8/ The degree of civilisation can also be judged by how a society treats people it doesn’t like. That is why the right to a fair trial – the right in play here along with the right not to be tortured – are so fundamentally important to human rights laws.

— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) January 17, 2018

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9/ Theresa May is not a huge fan of the European Convention on Human Rights – and her views are clearly clouded by this case in which she played a central role as Home Secretary. But she should be proud, in a way, of the outcome.

— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) January 17, 2018

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10/ Britain, the land which outlawed torture as part of the justice system hundreds of years ago through the 1689 Bill of Rights (where “cruel and unusual punishment” comes from), should be a beacon to the world on this issue. In this case it was.

— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) January 17, 2018

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11/ Right to a fair trial cases often involve villains. But principles of fairness and the rule of law should be universal, not least because we could all be the subject of a wrongful or malicious prosecution. And we should aim to be a beacon to the world on those issues.

— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) January 17, 2018

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12/ For more, read this excellent summary of the case https://t.co/NCLyvWfVmq

— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) January 17, 2018

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