The Human Rights Act

One thing which was promised in the Conservative manifesto upon which they won the election last week was the scrapping of the Human Rights Act (HRA) and the introduction of a British Bill of Rights. Many people assumed this to be a manifesto "filler". It would be a policy the party would be willing to give away when the need to negotiate a coalition arose - after all the Lib Dems blocked the Conservatives from doing this during the last government. However, after winning a majority, the Conservatives have made this one of their first policies to push on with. 

To understand the HRA, we need to understand the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The ECHR is an international treaty drawn up to protect human rights across Europe. It was drafted in the early 1950s by the Council of Europe. Britain not only signed the treaty but had a large hand in drafting it – the final draft committee chairman was a British Conservative MP. The ECHR enabled any citizen in Europe to take what they considered a violation of their basic human rights to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The rights included in the ECHR are: right to life, right not to be tortured or subjected to inhumane treatment, right not to be held as a slave, right to liberty and security of the person, right to a fair trial, right not be retrospectively convicted for a crime, right to a private and family life, right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, right to freedom of expression, right to freedom of assembly and association, right to marriage, right to an effective remedy, right not to be discriminated against, the right to the peaceful enjoyment of one’s property, and the right to an education. 

So what is the HRA? It is an act of parliament which incorporates the rights of the ECHR into British law and forces all public bodies (e.g. the government, the NHS and the police) to abide by these human rights. It was enacted in 1998 with support from all of the major parties. The HRA enables any citizen in the UK to take human rights cases to domestic courts instead Strasbourg. This became possible as the domestic courts would have to abide by the ECHR. If they did not, appeals could be taken to the European Court.

So why do the Conservatives want rid of the HRA? They claim that the HRA gives Europe too much power over our laws. It cites the ruling that prisoners should be allowed to vote; and the blocking of the deportation of Abu Qatada, accused of terrorism offences, as the UK could not guarantee that he would not be tortured in his homeland of Jordan.

However, the ECHR has less power than the Conservatives claim. For example, despite the ruling that prisoners should be given the vote, the European Court cannot force Britain to change its law. So, in Britain, prisoners still do not have the vote.

Nor does the ECHR meddle in British affairs as much as claimed. In 2012, Britain tried to deport 2,146 foreign offenders. 256 of these successfully appealed on human rights grounds - less than 1 in 8. Interestingly, even if the HRA was scrapped, these offenders could still have appealed under the ECHR. However, their appeal would have been heard in Strasbourg and not in the UK. More interestingly, even in Britain withdrew from the convention that it helped to draft, many of these potential deportees could have appealed under the UN Convention against Torture.

There are plenty of issues with scrapping the HRA and leaving the ECHR. For example, the ECHR is a pillar of the Good Friday agreement. However, and here I am going to give my own opinion, scrapping the HRA will restrict the rights of individuals and for it truly to have an effect, we would also need to leave the ECHR which would be a catastrophic blow to human rights across Europe. If the UK will not stand by the ECHR, how can we expect countries such as Russia and Turkey to do so? N.B. These two countries account for nearly half the ECHR violations between them.

It seems to me that scrapping the HRA will be a lot of effort for very little gain. The Conservative party is purely pandering to its right-wing backbenchers and populist media even though doing so will damage our relationship with Europe – a relationship they should want to keep intact if they are to successfully negotiate any change in EU laws.

Thanks for reading and allowing me to keep you In The Loop. I feel like this is a topic that can not be covered adequately in one blog post so if there’s anything obvious that I've missed, drop me a question in the comments.

Ed