UK Bill of Rights

[FancyThattle]

What do you think the implications would be of replacing the HRA with our own Bill of Rights?

I'm struggling to see anything wrong with this tbh and don't understand why everyone is so against it.

I imagine to begin with it will just copy the HRA but with the Supreme Court as the final arbiter.

It likely means more erosion of rights for vulnerable and poor people IMO

Why should it - are you simply anti-Tory? The biggest danger to poor and vulnerable people is a country that can't afford to help them. How do you think poor and vulnerable people do in the poorer parts of the EU? Would you prefer to be poor in the post Brexit UK or in Greece?

That's interesting, why do you think that JustAnotherPoster?

Personally, I don't think anything will change on our level. It'll be parliament and the courts that see a difference.

cdtaylornats Not anti tory perse but glad to see you fell for the hyperbole that the money ran out

Oooogle I think the amount of people that have had to turn to the ECHR due to the way the poor and vulnerable have been treated in this country is worrying when that option is removed when a bill of rights would be introduced.

I see. If we scrap the human rights act we will still have the protection of the ECHR as we aren't leaving the convention so, I assume, people will still have the option to take their case to Strasbourg once all domestic options have been exhausted.

In principle....nothing.

In practice, the devil is in the detail.

The question you have to ask yourself is which parts of the HRA would you scrap or not incorporate into the UK bill of rights?

The right to a family life? Or not to be tortured? Right to a fair trial maybe?

Also, it's a matter of trust. In a country where most people would consider a bonfire of Tories to be a good start, it seems a bit weird to me that suddenly we should trust them to draft a new law that enshrines our human rights which is designed to be less comprehensive than the one it replaces.

To me the press have cases vastly blown out of proportion and any attempt to water down our human rights should be resisted in my opinion.

In a country where most people would consider a bonfire of Tories to be a good start

Strange how more people voted for them than anyone else.

Depends on how you count.

They got the most MP's but the majority of people never voted Tory.

There are loads of good reasons to be concerned.

Who will they exclude from Human Rights protection...prisoners? foreigners? those with severe mental health problems? armed forces in combat zones? If you think that it is a splendid idea, think about the claim brought by service personnel for the failure to supply adequate protective equipment.Here are 50 cases from the splendid people at Rights info showing the range of cases currently brought rightsinfo.org/infographics/fifty-human-rights-cases/ covering torture, phone tapping, the rights of disabled people, children's rights, victims of crime, free speech, privacy, gay people etc etc

Many people are happy in theory for other people rights to be restricted (the bad guys), but not for themselves (the good guys). However history shows that who falls out of political/ society's favour can often be unexpected and change over time. So people protesting against fracking or airport expansion (often pillars of the community) may lose their Human Rights protection under new law if greater rights given to commercial interests.this was shown very much int the behaviour of the Met's undercover police officers infiltrating environmental protestors and the family of Stephen Lawrence. Remember in recent days that one of the biggest campaigners against the HRA, the Daily Mail has recently relied on it themselves.
www.pressgazette.co.uk/daily-mail-has-attacked-the-human-rights-act-whilst-also-seeking-to-shelter-behind-it/

How will they balance competing rights? Will they give more powers to press barons to breach privacy under the context of freedom of speech? Or prevent journalists printing information about politicians like Keith Vaz under the right to private life? The interests of landowners or corporate rights over people protesting about pollution?

What cases can be brought? The Government have already flagged up they want to exclude trivial cases- but what constitutes such cases as one persons trivial may be important to someone else
thinkinglegally.wordpress.com/2015/05/19/human-rights-act-are-these-cases-trivial/

In what courts would the right be exercisable? Currently the Human Rights Act allows arguments to be brought in the lowest courts and tribunals in England and Wales. what if they decide it can only be High Court or even back to the EHRC?

Will public bodies continue to be required in law to protect human rights? Currently they are required to to treat everyone with fairness, equality and dignity. See the Driscoll case as an example of that (where possible not separately out couples in care homes)

What will this tailoring of human rights to the ill explained concept of "British values" mean for our international standing and influence? As QC Sean Jones said "If Human Rights can be trimmed to match "British Values", what's our answer when Iran hangs gay people saying that reflects Iranian values?"

Anyway there is loads of brilliant material out there such as at rightsinfo.org/. please check it out (and I don't work for them!)

Exactly. Who will they 'exclude'. For me the Human rights act or bill of rights should apply to all erm....human's. So it doesn't matter if they are a 70yr old grandma whose worst crime was a parking ticket or an ISIS terror bomber.

The moment the government start saying that one person's human rights are more important than another groups. That's the day we should truly be scared.

It may be just interpretation. Take the right to family life, which has been used to prevent deportations based on the interpretation it means the right to family life here, however you could support that right by deporting the family as well.

cdtaylornats
As is often the case, some or all of a family are British citizens. It is actually contrary to international law that a country deport its own citizens.

The courts are actually very reluctant to prevent a deportation, even of a parent of British citizens, on the grounds of right to family life- very few succeed; often because they are a single parent/carer for a disabled partner.
Hence the rise in the concept of the skype parent (and I am making no comment on the rights or wrongs of the decisions but it shows that "right to family life" does not prevent deportations) www.opendemocracy.net/uk/shinealight/mia-light/do-your-parenting-by-skype-uk-gov-tells-fathers-being-deported-to-jamaica

It's a bit of a non-question until we actually know what would be in the Bill or Rights and how it would be phrased. I don't honestly see the point. We signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights for very good reason back in the 1950s, and adherence to that convention via the Human Rights Act should be all the protection we need.

I actually agree cdtaylor. It's all about interpretation. So there's nothing wrong with the law per se. It's just the way judges are interpreting it.

So what would be different with the next?