CIVIL LIBERTY RESTRICTIONS LACK OVERSIGHT
In times of crisis and national emergency Governments can wield huge power over us.
As every single one of us knows we’re living through what may ultimately prove to be the worst health and economic catastrophe in our recorded history. In the UK that is not be helped by the diabolically reckless manner in which Governments have responded. Too slow, too little, too casual.
But this crisis also has huge implications for our rights to freedom of expression and our civil liberties.
In Scotland right now there is a major threat to those freedoms. It is perhaps unsurprising that Governments who crave power are exploiting the Covid emergency to expand and extend their control, directing activity and resources in a manner that would be regarded as intolerable in normal times.
Repeatedly, and somewhat perversely, we have heard politicians compare the emergency to the Second World War. But for all that Churchill was a warmongering, abusive, racist drunk not even he was incompetent enough to send the troops into battle wearing bin liners and homemade masks.
During that war the British Government did however introduce emergency legislation that saw thousands and thousands of foreign nationals rounded up and sent to prison camps fearing they could be potential infiltrators and dissenters. Major national emergencies can breed deep paranoia among Governments no matter how big or small. The Scottish Government is not immune to that level of distrust either and is demonstrating its willingness to countenance extreme measures to maintain its control and its power.
In times of national emergency international law allows Governments to take steps that limit and restrict our freedoms, including freedom of expression and civil liberties. But every action it takes, every restriction it introduces, must be “reasonable, necessary and proportionate to the threat” and crucially have genuine independent oversight.
What we have witnessed in Scotland in recent months in the deliberate targeting of pro-independence voices meets none of those standards.
