Shabana Mahmood today called for major reform to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to stop it blocking the deportation of foreign criminals.
Killers, drug dealers and radical clerics are among those who have managed to resist being kicked out of the country by citing the treaty, which is embedded in UK law in the Human Rights Act.
While critics have repeatedly called for Britain to leave the ECHR, Ms Mahmood used a speech to the Council of Europe – which is responsible for the agreement – to argue that it needs to ‘evolve’ to make it ‘in step with common sense’.
‘If a foreign national commits a serious crime, they should expect to be removed from the country,’ she told the Council of Europe’s committee of ministers in Strasbourg.
‘The European convention on human rights is one of the great achievements of postwar politics. It has endured because it has evolved. Now, it must do so again.’
The Justice Secretary suggested reform of the treaty was necessary to restore ‘public confidence in the rule of law’.
‘There is a growing perception – sometimes mistaken, sometimes grounded in reality – that human rights are no longer a shield for the vulnerable, but a tool for criminals to avoid responsibility,’ she said.
‘That the law too often protects those who break the rules, rather than those who follow them.’
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood today called for major reform to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)
Fatmir Bleta, who allegedly killed a man in Albania, was later jailed in Britain for a separate offence but resisted deportation using Article 8 of the ECHR
Labour recently announced a new bill containing measures designed to restrict the use of the ‘right to private and family life’ under Article 8 of the ECHR.
Ms Mahmood continued in her speech: ‘In the UK, we are restoring the balance we pledged at the birth of our Convention: liberty with responsibility, individual rights with the public interest. There must be consequences for breaking the rules.
‘Which is why we are clarifying how Convention rights – particularly Article 8 – operate in relation to immigration rules. The right to family life is fundamental.
‘But it has too often been used in ways that frustrate deportation, even where there are serious concerns about credibility, fairness, and risk to the public.
‘We’re bringing clarity back to the distinction between what the law protects and what policy permits. Prisoners claiming a right to socialise – under Article 8 – is not just a legal stretch. It damages the public perception of human rights altogether.’
Ms Mahmood’s intervention follows criticism of the ECHR from nine EU leaders, including Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni and Donald Tusk, who was previously president of the European Council before becoming leader of Poland.
They said judges had been interpreting the treaty so widely that they were putting ‘too many limitations’ on ministers’ ability to deport ‘serious violent criminals’.
While Labour has called for reforms to the treaty, Kemi Badenoch has said she is ‘likely’ to support leaving it altogether.
Somali-born Wahbi Mohammed helped plot the 21/7 bombings. He was freed from jail in 2013 but his lawyers used human rights laws to resist his deportation, saying he was at risk of being tortured
Milan-born Learco Chindamo stabbed head-teacher Philip Lawrence to death outside his London school in 1995. An immigration tribunal ruled that sending him back to Italy would beach his ‘right to a family life’
In a speech earlier this month, the Tory leader bemoaned the effect of ‘lawfare’ in a number of areas – including on tackling illegal migration, deporting sex offenders, and supporting soldiers and military veterans.
Mrs Badenoch set out her party’s plans to establish a commission to investigate how to exit the ECHR, while the probe will also look at other international treaties.
She blasted the ECHR, which is enforced by Strasbourg-based judges, as being a ‘sword used to attack democratic decisions and common sense’.
‘The ECHR is now being used in ways never intended by its original authors,’ Mrs Badenoch said. ‘It should be a shield to protect. Instead, it’s become a sword.’
The Tory leader highlighted how members of grooming gangs had previously used Article 8 of the ECHR – the right to a family life – to fight their deportation from Britain.
Mrs Badenoch said she believed the UK ‘will likely need to leave’ the ECHR, but warned she ‘won’t commit to leaving without a clear plan to do so’.
‘We saw that holding a referendum without a plan to get Brexit done, led to years of wrangling and endless arguments until we got it sorted in 2019,’ she added. ‘We cannot go through that again.’
Criminals who have cited the ECHR in deportation appeals include a Turkish heroin dealer, who was allowed to stay in Britain to protect his ‘right to a family life’.
Islamic cleric Abu Qatada was shielded from deportation by the Human Rights Act for nearly 12 years before finally being deported to Jordan
Sudanese paedophile Jumaa Kater Saleh managed to stay in the UK after a legal challenge under Article 3 of the ECHR
The 70-year-old man, who is believed to be one of the country’s biggest drug pushers, won his bid after claiming that he would be at risk of persecution if he returned to Turkey due to being an Alevi Kurd.
He is just one of a long list of serious criminals who have used the ECHR to fight deportation from Britain.
They range from convicted terrorists and ISIS supporters to a paedophile who abused a 13-year-old girl.
Also among those who have made use of the legislation is an Italian-born man who stabbed a headmaster to death outside the gates of his school, and a father of four who was accused of fatally shooting a man in the head in his native Albania.
It comes after Keir Starmer’s top legal adviser came under fire last month after apparently comparing those who support leaving the ECHR to Nazis.
Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, hit out at MPs and the media for being behind a ‘siren song’ pushing for Britain to drop international law.
In a lecture at the Royal United Services Institute, a defence and security think-tank, he said the Labour Government had a ‘policy of progressive realism’ that means it will never leave international conventions.
Numerous senior politicians on the Right have called for Britain to leave the convention after it stopped Rwanda deportation flights.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has said she is open to leaving the ECHR
Lord Hermer said such ‘songs’ had been heard before, citing Nazi ideologist Carl Schmitt, who supported Hitler’s policies such as the Night of the Long Knives assassinations.
The Attorney General said: ‘Our approach is a rejection of the siren song that can sadly now be heard in the Palace of Westminster and in some spectrums of the media, that Britain abandons the constraints of international law in favour of raw power.
‘This is not a new song. The claim that international law is fine as far as it goes, but can be put aside when conditions change, is a claim that was made in the early 1930s by ‘realist’ jurists in Germany, most notably Carl Schmitt, whose central thesis was in essence the claim that state power is all that counts, not law.
‘Because of the experience of what followed in 1933, far-sighted individuals rebuilt and transformed the institutions of international law, as well as internal constitutional law.’
Lord Hermer later apologised for his ‘clumsy’ remark.
