His rights are as good as mine

What may seem like a perversion of justice at first will instead be remembered, I hope, as a landmark case re-enshrining rights too often violated on the impulse of fear. Radical scum cleric Abu Qatada will be compensated for unlawful detention.

His deportation case has already cleared the court system and he will be booted out of the UK, the country that gave him refuge and which he spat on. But his original detention without charge on terrorism suspicion was a stain on Britain's rule of law and right. The current ECHR ruling sets the record straight: charge or be charged!

However great the threats we face, we must not sink to the lowness of the dictatorships where suspicion is a valid arrest motive and silence is an acceptable charge. Often the test of our love of liberty and rights is how prepared we are to extend them to our enemy. If it wants to maintain a credible anti-terrorism record, Britain should beef up its intelligence service, re-route police resources and stop fearing being politically incorrect. After all, sending undercover agents into a mosque or a culture centre to record a hateful sermon would be a much more efficient way to obtain enough proof to prosecute and expel the Qatada-like hatemongers.

Oft invoked as a scarecrow by complainants of dubious repute, the ECHR nevertheless has so far played a key role in bringing to the public's attention the rights violations carried out in EU member states, and other countries accepting its jurisdiction. Unlike our own HRC's, the ECHR does not create rights of its own. It merely looks after the EU Human Rights Charter, a sound document tarnished by local interpretations such as the UK one.