Criminal Justice: Transgender People

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

I am slightly surprised that the noble Lord has commented in such detail on Tara Hudson; he will be aware of the obligations under the Data Protection Act and the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which place restrictions on the disclosure of information relating to prisoners. As noble Lords will be aware, it is the policy of the Ministry of Justice and its executive agencies never to discuss individual cases. However, without breaching any of the obligations under those Acts, I can assure the House that she is being held in an appropriate environment and is receiving the care that she needs.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree entirely with the Minister on the approach to anonymity but, in this and other cases, there is deep concern about treatment within the criminal justice system. There are, however, good works being undertaken, such as at Her Majesty’s Prison Stafford. Will he reassure the House that there is ongoing training and awareness-raising of the issues of transsexuality, particularly when aspects of the criminal justice system are outsourced?

Human Rights and Civil Liberties

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the decision of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, to have this very important debate, and I am pleased also to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lexden.

I have not made any notes today because I wanted to speak in a personal capacity. First, I must declare an interest as a co-founder of Stonewall. I do not understand why the Government are taking this approach to the Human Rights Act, which has worked magnificently for 15 years, with the consequence that if we adopt the proposals the Government outlined in 2014, we could very well move away from the European Convention on Human Rights. That has consequences beyond human rights, which some noble Lords may well welcome. Indeed, it would perhaps prohibit us from remaining a member of the European Union.

I cite the European Union for a very good reason—because the Council of Europe, which Churchill took great pride in, the European convention and our Human Rights Act all stem from an amazing point in history: the end of the Second World War. The founders of a new Europe looked across Europe and stated that what happened should never happen again. The convention, the Council of Europe and the European Union were quite literally born out of the ashes of the Second World War, the ashes of peoples’ hopes and dreams and, yes, the ashes from concentration camps dotted across Europe.

We have seen the least favoured defended—people like me in the 1980s, having no rights as a gay man—through Stonewall and through courageous individuals pursuing their cause, literally dragging their cases through the courts of the United Kingdom to prove that they could go to the court in Strasbourg and achieve a judgment. That is one of the reasons why I can now stand in the United Kingdom and almost enjoy equality. Sadly, simply because of their sexual orientation and somebody else’s religious belief, people in Northern Ireland cannot enjoy those same rights. The jurisprudence we have gained from the European Court of Human Rights is what our rights here are based on.

It is good to see the Minister in his place. I owe him an apology because I talked about these issues in the debate on the gracious Speech on 1 June but was not in my place for his winding-up speech. Subsequently, as I hope noble Lords expect good East End boys to do, I wrote him a letter of apology. In his winding-up speech he referred to the fact that we do not need Strasbourg in order to achieve rights. That is absolutely correct. We need Strasbourg when Governments do not want to give those rights and when Governments believe that equality is inappropriate for certain individuals or sections of society. The Conservative Government could introduce equal marriage in the other place precisely because of the courage of organisations and individuals who had gone through our courts and to Strasbourg in order to achieve jurisprudence and a judgment upon which the Government could decide to act, or not to act. In the early 1990s, when the European Court of Human Rights gave its judgment that the ban on lesbians and gays serving in the military was wrong, the Government, quite rightly, could have merely noted the judgment and continued with the ban. They chose to do the right thing and recognise the judgment.

Here I come to one of the central points of the Motion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace: the challenges. One of the biggest challenges is the misinformation and disinformation about the European Court of Human Rights and the Human Rights Act, largely purveyed, I am saddened to say, through our newspapers and the reactions of some politicians. The reaction of politicians, from all political parties, to the judgment on the blanket ban on prisoners having the vote was shameful. It was misrepresented as Strasbourg once again interfering with a sovereign parliament. However, it is up to Parliament to accept the judgment or not; it is Parliament that decides to change its laws, or not.

Before I conclude, I thank noble Lords for indulging me today. For me, this is personal as well as political. As I have often said in this House—I believe that I even said it in my maiden speech—I am an atheist, although someone pointed out to me that perhaps I am a recovering Catholic. What I have to do, as a human rights defender, is always defend the other—defend the right to religious belief and defend the right to difference, because if I do not, how on earth can I ever expect anyone to defend me? Great democracies, beacons of democracy such as the United Kingdom, are such because we have had the courage to speak externally for the rights of others and internally for minorities. All great democracies are judged not by how they treat their majority but by how they treat their minorities—the least favoured, even someone who wants to use the Human Rights Act to escape deportation. Is it not better that we have a handful of cases where there is an abuse of law, rather than see a majority denied access to justice and access to law and equality?

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, mentioned the international aspects. I am deeply worried that what we do in these Houses will give succour to those who thought that they could use teargas and shoot rubber bullets at the gay parade in Istanbul last week, or members of the junta in Burma who feel it is absolutely right openly to condemn people merely because of their sexual orientation.

These arguments have been going on for not just the past century, but centuries. I will perhaps commit a small theatrical blasphemy by paraphrasing William Shakespeare, who co-wrote a brilliant play called “Thomas More”. Thomas More is called to the Tower of London as the citizens of London are rebelling because the “strangers” have made their way from Calais to Dover. He comes out, and with one hand quells the mob—if only we politicians could do the same—saying, “You bid that they be removed? The stranger, with their children upon their back, their belongings at their side, their family around them. Imagine you are the ‘stranger’ with your children upon your back, your family at your side, your belongings at your feet. Imagine that you are the stranger and then bid that they be removed—and show your mountainish inhumanity”. Now is the time for all of us to speak against inhumanity and in defence of human rights.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been an enlightening and enlightened debate, and there have been wiser counsels than mine own, but I want to concentrate on one particular aspect and express my deep concern at the Government’s intention to publish proposals with a view to scrapping the Human Rights Act and proposing a British Bill of Rights.

I never thought that in my lifetime and in the 21st century I would see human rights, or rather the judgments based on the European Convention on Human Rights, become a political issue that could result in diminishing human rights and access to justice in this country. There are huge consequences to such an approach, both domestically and internationally, as well as consequences for our continuing membership of the European Union, a Union based on fundamental values, human rights and the rule of law.

Let me be clear from the outset what I think the Government’s intentions are. They are to appease their right wing and the leader writers of the tabloids in particular and the right-wing press in general. It is about constructing a potential Bill which will deliver judgments that the Government believe they can live with and the public will approve of. It is a dangerous route of populism for a country built on the tradition of the protection of the individual both at home and abroad.

Access to the courts on issues such as human rights or the interpretation of such rights defines us as a democracy. I believe that the problems are with the judgments which have been delivered from the European Court of Human Rights, and from our own Supreme Court, when they have not fitted comfortably with the Government’s view of human rights or those of the right-wing press. So we scrap the Human Rights Act, which has worked well—there have been many examples in this debate. Then we withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights because we do not like the judgments delivered from that court, or indeed the justiciability of such a court. What happens, then, when the Executive or some future Government do not like or welcome the judgments from the Supreme Court when based on a Bill of Rights? Do we scrap that Bill or do we place judges in the courts to deliver judgments that are palpable? The road ahead is worrying indeed and we will never appease the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Telegraph or the Times—none of them. We will have lost power to so-called populism: to the mob.

The fury and misrepresentation around judgments from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has bordered on the hysterical but I remind your Lordships that many rights exist in this country today because courageous individuals and organisations took their cases to that court. Before the Human Rights Act, they had to quite literally drag their cases through the domestic courts before they could have their rights recognised, then upheld, in Strasbourg. Even then, in some instances, Governments resisted.

The infamous judgment on the rights of prisoners to vote was, sadly, hysterically seized upon by most political parties but the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg did not state that prisoners should have the vote. It stated that a blanket ban was in breach of the convention, and so it is. Let the punishment fit the crime; if we believe in a Prison Service which is redemptive, should we not prepare our people to carry out their civic duties and responsibilities when they leave prison, including participation in democratic elections? There are myths—many myths—but I would rather have a system which could be abused by a small number of people than diminish the right to a fair hearing, or diminish the human rights of communities and out-of-favour minorities or individuals.

I believe that a civilised democracy—a civilised country—is judged by how it treats its least favoured, least revered and least loved individuals or minorities. On a personal note, I come from a minority which is still much maligned and misrepresented. Even today, our rights in some parts of the United Kingdom are still resisted or denied. The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual people are still not universally welcomed or accepted in the United Kingdom. Sadly, even in Northern Ireland, same-sex marriage is still not legal or available. I remember well that until the 1990s, we in our community had virtually no rights in this country. We now have them, due in great part to the courage of individuals and organisations such as Stonewall, which pursued individual cases through the courts to Strasbourg. The rights that I enjoy from the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act—the rights that we all enjoy—are enjoyed because generations of individuals have had the courage to stand up against injustice, tyrannies and Governments to demand equality. They demanded not to be treated better but to be treated equally.

Let me conclude. On behalf of the least favoured and least popular, and in defence of the human rights of all and the principle that human rights are universal and do not stop at manmade borders or during manmade wars, I urge your Lordships to defend vigorously the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights. It is better that our lives as legislators are made more difficult and we face criticism from populists than that the rights of another be sacrificed on the misconstructed altar of public opinion, which will shift and shift. I am very clear indeed on this. Judges and judgments are not there to please or to make the lives of politicians or Governments easy, or easier. They are there to make our lives difficult and, where necessary, to make us think again—to pause and hesitate—and never more so than in the realms of human rights and civil liberties.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Friday 16th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I hate to cross swords with the noble Baroness, for whom I have enormous respect, but frankly she is wrong. This is about accelerating a death by wilful means, and there is no case for ambiguity here. The noble Lord, Lord Brennan, has made a powerful speech and I endorse all that he said. There is no case for ambiguity. We are talking about terminally ill people who have decided— often, I imagine, after long and careful thought and in consideration of their families—that they want to bring forward the termination. That is suicide, and they are going to be assisted. It would be in the interests not only of clarity but of honesty to make the Bill the “assisted suicide Bill”, because then we would know what we are talking about and people in the country would know what we are talking about. There is a powerful case for the Bill and a powerful case against it, but there is no case at all for fudging it.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to speak on this issue and against the amendment. Some colleagues will know that shortly before I entered this House, my partner died of a very aggressive cancer known as angiosarcoma. It came back swiftly and his death, I am certain, was assisted. During that period at the brilliant Royal Marsden Hospital, I was absolutely clear that if my husband of six years and partner of 31 years was to die, I wanted to die with him. I raise this not out of any sentiment or emotion, but for the very clarity that we need when dealing with assisted dying. I was healthy and wanted to commit suicide to end a healthy life. My partner—my husband—was facing a death that could happen in a week, three days or three months. To see him almost completely out of his senses because of the morphine, but still aware that he was unable to breathe, offered me clarity enough that I wanted to commit suicide and that my husband, who was dying, needed his death accelerated. With respect to noble Lords who are proposing this amendment, it will not bring clarity; it will, sadly, do the reverse.

Divorce (Financial Provision) Bill [HL]

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Friday 21st November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome all the noble Baroness’s amendments. They seem sensible and the principle of equality is at the heart of them. I just wanted to point out that, given the equal marriage Act and the Civil Partnership Act, feasible as it is for a noble Baroness to find her footballer, it is equally feasible for a noble Lord, too.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, on the footballer point, I suggest that noble Lords should look at carefully at the teams, because certainly the teams that I and my noble friend Lord Hunt support probably would not give the sort of assets that people would be looking for.

The three amendments in this group in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, beginning with Amendment 23 in her name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, again respond to concerns raised at Second Reading. I and others then raised the concern that the one-size-fits-all approach would not work in all cases, as there was no provision to take account of individual circumstances that could leave an individual in a much weaker position than would be reasonable. The amendments seek to address those concerns. In particular, Amendment 24 sets out a specific duty for the court to satisfy itself. This is a step in the right direction, but I am still left wondering whether we should go a little further to protect the weaker partner. However, the case for indefinite maintenance orders needs addressing and these amendments make progress in that respect.