It is very simple. He or she who breaks the law should have no say in who makes the law.
In a democracy, the law is not an abstract thing. It is the living will of society, shaped by those who we elect from our number to make the body of law reflecting our values and aspirations. More fundamentally, our lawmakers are tasked with protecting our collective and individual right to life and property. A small minority have, through their actions, rejected wider society’s rights to life and property. They have threatened our safety and our peace. For us, as a society, to be forced to canvass the views of those who have chosen to act outside the law – who have shown nothing but contempt for the law – on who makes the law and what laws are made is, quite frankly, perverse.
Our government is quite right to resist the imposition of this by the ECHR, a body which seems bent on bringing the entire concept of human rights into disrepute.
Edmund Standing adds:
Imagine the perversity of the potential situation which could arise in relation to Roshonara Choudhry, for example. She could be given the right to participate in the democratic process, despite being in prison for attempting to murder her MP.
