UK to inject ‘common sense’ into human rights legislation

The UK is to announce plans to inject “a healthy dose of common sense” into its human rights legislation, by giving parliament and domestic judges more flexibility in how they interpret rulings from a European court.

The proposals are based on a review of the 1998 Human Rights Act, legislation passed under Tony Blair’s Labour government, by former Court of Appeal judge Sir Peter Gross.

Some elements of the Conservative party have long criticised aspects of the act, which brought into British law the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights, drawn up in 1949 and of which the UK was a founder signatory.

The convention is separate from the EU, which the UK left last year, and is interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights.

The proposals would weaken the current obligation on domestic courts to “have regard to” decisions of the Strasbourg-based court when interpreting cases in the UK.

The Ministry of Justice said the reforms would also stop parliament from “gold-plating” the Strasbourg court’s decisions in domestic legislation. Critics have claimed that Westminster has been too fastidious in seeking to satisfy the court’s demands when framing new legislation necessitated by its rulings.

Supporters of change have pointed to cases in which they claim that people facing deportation after criminal sentences have, under the act, used their right to family life to resist removal.

Among the plans unveiled by the MoJ is one to introduce a “permission stage” before any challenge is brought to court under the Human Rights Act. Under this, the grounds on which criminals could prevent deportation would be limited.

Such a step would bar “frivolous claims” that sapped the “energy and resource of courts”, the department said.

The proposals would aim to strike a “proper balance between individuals’ rights, personal responsibility and the wider public interest”, the department added.

“This would be achieved while retaining the UK’s commitment to the ECHR,” it said.

Dominic Raab, justice secretary, said the proposals would include a “British bill of rights” but gave only limited information on how that would alter the rights enshrined in the convention.

“Our plans for a bill of rights will strengthen typically British rights like freedom of speech and trial by jury, while preventing abuses of the system and adding a healthy dose of common sense,” he said.

However, the opposition Labour party, a leading human rights group and an organisation representing lawyers all strongly criticised the proposals.

Steve Reed, Labour’s shadow justice secretary, vowed to oppose the changes and said the government had opted to “tinker” with the Human Rights Act as a distraction from “the avalanche of corruption” that was overwhelming it.

I Stephanie Boyce, president of the Law Society of England and Wales, which represents solicitors, said the powers the government claimed to be introducing for the most part already existed.

“British judges deliver British justice based on British laws, looking closely at how judgments fit into the national context, and disapplying them if there is good reason to do so,” she said.

Martha Spurrier, director of Liberty, the human rights group, said the plan was a “blatant, unashamed power grab” from a government that wanted to put itself “above the law”.

“They are quite literally rewriting the rules in their favour so they become untouchable,” she said, adding that the act was an “essential law” that allowed challenges to public authorities when they got it wrong.