An important judgement

This week's judgement of the European Court of Human Rights that Abu Hamaz, the militant Islamist preacher, and four other alleged terrorists, can be sent from Britain to the United States to face trial there on terrorism charges should quieten the British government's dissatisfaction with many of the Court's recent judgements. Mr Hamaz, who was well known for his extremist preaching at Finsbury Park Mosque and is coming to the end of a seven year sentence in Britain for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred, intends to appeal against the Court's decision that extradition would not abuse his human rights but since the decision was unanimous he is unlikely to succeed.

This evidence that the European Court is not routinely sympathetic to immigrants appealing against various UK convictions or rulings should enable Mr Cameron and Home Secretary Theresa May to take a more balanced view of the importance of a Court which Britain played a leading role in establishing. However, that would be too much to ask of the Sun newspaper whose front-page on Tuesday wrongly anticipated a judgement in favour of Mr Hamaz's nine-year legal battle against extradition and in claiming that it had “led calls to sling out Hamza since 2003” apparently saw no problem that to do so would ignore a legal process to which Britain is committed by treaty obligation.