Sir, "Those who would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" (Benjamin Franklin). In your editorial "A denial of justice made in Strasbourg" (February 11), about the recent ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Abu Qatada vs UK, you write that "no country should be put in a position where it is forced to choose between justice and the security of its own citizens".

I vehemently disagree. Democratic constitutions force governments to make the choice between justice and security every day. It is delicate and difficult to achieve a balance – but getting it right is what defines the essence of a democratic and civilised society. The decision of the ECHR is helping the UK government to strike that balance in the case of Mr Qatada.

The ECHR ruled that Mr Qatada's extradition to Jordan was not possible because of the risk that evidence obtained through torture could be used in his trial before a Jordanian court. However, by accepting the validity of Jordan's diplomatic assurances that Mr Qatada will not himself be tortured, the ECHR also indicated how the obstacle to extradition could be lifted.

The message was not lost on the UK government, and recent high-level contacts with Jordan may soon result in an agreement extending the diplomatic assurances to exclude the use of torture-tainted evidence in a future trial. The formal decision on whether this would be enough to allow for extradition to go ahead is not for me to make, but there is a strong case to argue that assurances which are valid to protect the physical integrity of Mr Qatada should also be valid to protect the legal integrity of his trial.

This course of action by the UK government offers prospects of an outcome that would be excellent news for everyone except the extremists. It would allow the UK to remove a potentially dangerous individual without compromising the values and standards the country has built over centuries and helped to extend across Europe. It would be good for Jordan and the international reputation it is trying to establish as a country in which torture and other human rights violations are a thing of the past.

While 20 years ago Abu Qatada himself was granted political asylum in the UK, any Jordanian extremist trying to follow his suit after the ruling of the Strasbourg justices would be far less likely to succeed.

And it would be good for human rights, showing that robust action against extremism is possible without giving up on the fundamental values that extremists themselves are intent on destroying.