Rights, Security, and the Begum Case

The UK Supreme Court’s ruling on the Begum case has drawn attention once more to the contest of abstract notions such as ‘Rights’ and ‘Security’, when what is needed is a proper examination of the facts.

A UK citizen (born in Britain) – a girl of 15 – went to Syria to join an ISIS group.  According to some reports she was groomed as a companion/wife, had three children (who all subsequently died), and when later she wanted to return to the UK, the British Home Secretary removed her UK citizenship and left her as a detainee in a camp – on the ground that she posed a serious threat to national security.

 

There are important arguments about what kind of threat to national security would justify the removal of a person’s citizenship.  But any sweeping statement about concerns for security must trump citizenship rights, or for that matter, individuals’ rights must trump security policies, is bound to be vacuous unless specific details are spelt out.  Clearly, no government should be allowed to just claim it is acting to protect national security and thereby deprive selected citizens of all their rights; and equally there can be no inalienable right to endanger the lives of others in any country.

 

Yet what we don’t hear about are the relevant details.  What threats are actually posed by Shamima Begum?  Is she alleged to be a terrorist mastermind?  Is she being charged with inflicting harm on innocent people?  If so, should a UK citizen not be tried to ascertain her guilt in a British court, and incarcerated if found guilty?  Or was she duped at an impressionable age to serve extremists who exploited her?  And the loss of her UK citizenship is a punishment for being naïve?

 

Instead of the pertinent facts, all we keep hearing is the disagreement over the Court of Appeal’s view that her rights ought to override national security as interpreted by the Home Secretary, and now the Supreme Court’s pronouncement that the Home Secretary’s assessment of national security must override her rights.

 

The point is that no one’s rights and no Home Secretary’s security assessment can be regarded as absolute.  We cannot make sound judgement by declaring that people have the right to do whatever they want and should suffer no consequence even if their actions are harmful to others; or that politicians with key government positions are always right and should never be challenged for the decisions they make.

 

Rather than leaving the ‘Rights versus Security’ show to carry on distracting us from any case that brings an individual’s rights and a government decision into conflict, we must demand transparency and accuracy in establishing the evidence for rival claims, so that they can be fairly and objectively resolved.  Without a focus on the evidence, a critical disagreement is all too likely going to end up being submerged by a hollow debate.