Civil liberties and legal barriers

• • Civil liberties are basic rights and freedoms granted to citizens of a country by law
  • Include freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom of assembley, freedom of association and freedom of religious worship
• • Rights are clearly designed to protect the rights and freedoms of individuals
  • argued that they can limit the arbitrary of agencies to achieve social control
  • often exaggerated by the media
• Hum Rights Act 1998 enables us to enforce the rights we have under the European convention on Human Rights (ECHR)
• Case article: Abu Qatada

  • The British government wanted to report Abu Qatada because of immigration rules and because he is a national Jordon
  • Deported and this happened because five law lords backed the government's policy of removing terror suspects from Britain on the basis of assurances from foreign government
  • Didn't use his real name and had a forged passport when he come to the UK
• DNA database (S and Marper v UK)

  • European Court of Human Rights decided in the Marper case that keeping innocents people's DNA records of a criminal register breached article 8 of ECHR
  • Under the protection of Freedoms Act 2012, only those convicted of an offence have their DNA and fingerprint records retained indefinetly
• DNA database (Synoptic link)

  Marxist theory

  Laws, such as the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, are necessary to protect the working class from the ruling elite making arbitrary judgements about them
• Arbitrary = Random, Subjective and uniformed