Home Secretary Theresa May has accused judges of making the UK more dangerous by ignoring rules aimed at deporting more foreign criminals. Last year, MPs approved new guidance for judges making clear a criminal’s right to a family life had limits.
The guidance made clear the right to a family life – set out in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights – was only qualified. The change was designed to end a string of cases where it was used to justify granting foreign criminals the right to remain in the UK rather than deporting them.
Ms. May said she now wanted to introduce a law to deport most foreigners guilty of serious crimes. The Home Secretary also mentioned that deportation should be the norm in all but “extraordinary circumstances”.
Judges who allowed prisoners to remain were also guilty of reinforcing public perceptions of human rights as “legal dodges that allow criminals to escape proper punishment and to continue to prey on the public”, Ms. May said.
Some argue that the judiciary is upholding the will of Parliament in this case, not the Home Secretary. The critics say that if Theresa May does not like the law, she should seek to change it by repealing the Human Rights Act.
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