Wednesday 9 November 2016

Rights #Trump Democracy

In 1977 I read in the Press that the Conservatives' policy to stop foreign men using marriage to live in the UK wouldn't succeed because there would be an appeal to the European Commission of Human Rights. So on 10 June I complained to the ECHR that foreign men could live in the UK through marriage even though I (and other British men) couldn't live in their countries through marriage. The ECHR's response was that I hadn't been the victim of a Government decision. So I put my complaint to the Equal Opportunities Commission, which I knew was campaigning vigorously against the Tory policy. The EOC response was that my complaint was "outside our ambit". So I complained to the ECHR about the EOC. The ECHR's response was that I should challenge the EOC in the UK courts. To this end I sought Legal Aid. But the Law Society denied me the requisite Green Certificate (though I was getting Legal Aid for the divorce I was going through at the time). On 12 May 1982 the ECHR determined in favour of 3 women whose husbands weren't allowed to live in the UK. This was part of a process, while British servicemen were fighting for "British sovereign territory", the Falklands, that has enabled some 300,000 men to live in these islands! On 7 July 1983 the House of Lords determined that the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act did not apply to immigration control Therefore the EOC spent public money illegally.