That article dates from 2009, but section 44 of the Terrorism Act, which allowed for stop-and-search without suspicion, was suspended following a 2010 ruling by the ECHR that it violated Article 8. In various developments since that suspension, it doesn't look like anything as sweeping as the previous powers will be coming back any time soon.
To be fair, the political leaders are damned whatever they do on this issue now.
On the one hand, we have the principled argument of H. L. Mencken, "The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
On the other hand, we have had a few very high profile cases recently where it's hard to see how even a generous interpretation of proper human rights safeguards should protect someone, yet that person has won legal battles time after time in court using technicalities and weasel words. In most cases, those victories are ultimately won in the European Court after failing in all national courts here in the UK. And these are the ones that make the headlines and force politicians to react.
What is easy to forget when looking at the latter cases is how often the European Court has also told a current UK administration it had gone too far, often in granting sweeping powers to police forces and security services in recent years. A majority of voters might have agreed with those decisions if they were pointed out, but the related stories aren't always front page material.
In short, I suspect a lot of the talk about getting rid of ECHR and the Human Rights Acts is populist politics. No political party is seriously proposing getting rid of those without at least introducing some other form of human rights legislation instead, but then at least they've done something. I'm guessing that being the politician who didn't do anything after stories about Abu Hamza not being deported have been on the front page of the Daily Mail for years is probably not a good way to win your next election.
The facts of some of those high profile cases were... not exactly as the press portrayed them. For example, there was one high profile case where a murderer couldn't be deported to, I think, Italy because of the Human Rights Act. What the press didn't mention is that he was pretty solidly English - he'd lived in the country since the age of 5, and didn't speak Italian or know anyone there - but even though morally he was firmly our responsibility and not Italy's, the Government tried to foist him on Italy through a legal technicality. The human rights laws just provided a way for the courts to ignore their legal weaseling and come to the only reasonable conclusion.
The facts of some of those high profile cases were... not exactly as the press portrayed them.
Indeed. Unfortunately, politicians are often compelled to respond to the portrayal of what is happening, as presented in the media, as well as to what is actually happening. When the press distorts these cases just for the print equivalent of linkbait titles, it does have undesirable consequences for the debate as a whole.
