" Human Rights " Appeal !

The " Brexit " debate in Britain on leaving the EU will certainly be enlivened by the outcome of a human rights appeal in a Norwegian court. Many chafe at the rules enacted by Brussels and imposed on all members of the European Union and this particular appeal finding comes at a time when many Britons are deciding how they will cast their vote.

The events of July 2011 hit the news headlines across the entire world , and the name " Anders Behring Breivik " entered infamy. This exponent of the old Nazi Nationalist Socialism type of politics launched a bomb attack in Oslo that killed nine people, and then - dressed in a police uniform - systematically hunted down and killed sixty-nine young people attending a youth camp on a Norwegian island.

Captured and put before a court he insisted on giving the Nazi stiff arm salute to court officials. He showed no remorse and was sentenced to life imprisonment.Since then he has been held at Skien prison, 140 kilometres from Oslo and housed in a separate cell block to protect him from attack by other prisoners.  His quarters provide both a computer and Playstation, but he is not permitted to be connected to the Internet.

Breivik - now 37 - launched an appeal against the state claiming that his " human rights " had been violated.  To the astonishment of many, the court partially agreed with his claim.  The listing of events which he provided to support this allegation makes interesting reading.

It seems that he was provided with essentially the same type of meal on two consecutive days - and was forced to eat with plastic cutlery.   Some strip searches were carried out in the presence of female prison warders, and when he was on suicide watch his sleep was disturbed at hourly intervals by prison officers checking that her was still breathing.

He is also complaining about being held in isolation, despite the threat of harm by other prisoners, and this is despite the clear obligation of his captors to ensure that his safety is paramount. Despite the court agreeing with this claim the prison would be held accountable if he suffered injury or death.  How this should be rectified has not been stipulated by the court and is a conundrum left for the prison to solve.

This finding handed down by a Scandinavian court on a European Union statute of human rights will have no bearing on decisions in courts in the rest of the world, but it will be used by civil rights exponents to buttress their cases whenever such issues arise.

It is likely that Breivik will live another forty years and should he gain release he would probably kill again.  Most world countries have at least some prisoners who have been responsible for a mass slaying and will never be released - and in Australia the Port Arthur massacre fits that mould.

When we abolished the death penalty it was a decision on what sort of punishment would apply. A prison is a place of punishment - and that seems to be forgotten when human rights enter the issue of appeal.  A prisoner loses many of the human rights that ordinary citizens take for granted and our laws decree the extent to which that applies.  We shield prisoners from the degree of inhumanity that was practised in past centuries but there is a danger that constant erosion will see prisons lose the fear factor that deters criminality.

Prison was not meant to be a convivial health resort or holiday centre !