Scottish Human Rights Commission letter to EHRC Chair re GRA

[Abitofalark]

Trouble ahead:

1. A stiff letter from the Chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) Judith Robertson seeking an early meeting of her Commission with Baroness Falkner re concerns about her recent intervention in Scotland about gender recognition reform and why the EHRC has changed. "Your public statements on 22 January 2022 have the result that our policy positions on this topic no longer align."

www.scottishhumanrights.com/media/2286/20220210-letter-to-ehrc-chair-and-scotland-commissioner-vfinal.pdf

2. A stern statement about the role and remit of the EHRC vs SHRC:

' “The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is Scotland’s equality regulator. The EHRC also retains a human rights mandate in Scotland, solely in relation to matters of law and policy that remain reserved to the UK Parliament.

“Under the terms of section 7 of the Equality Act 2006, the EHRC is not empowered to take human rights action in Scotland where it falls within the mandate of the Scottish Human Rights Commission. Where it proposes to take such action, it is required to seek our consent.

“The Scottish Human Rights Commission wishes to make clear that the EHRC has not sought our consent in relation to its recent commentary and interventions on the human rights implications of reforming gender recognition processes. Therefore, any analysis, commentary or engagement about the human rights implications of this (or any other) devolved legislation and policy is for the Scottish Human Rights Commission to make. '
www.scottishhumanrights.com/news/statement-clarifying-the-mandates-of-the-scottish-human-rights-commission-and-the-equality-and-human-rights-commission-in-scotland/

I hope this is bringing home to the EHRC just how far the rot has spread and how many institutions have been captured. The sitting on the fence approach has failed. We need them to clearly state the law and go to court if necessary. It cannot be left to crowd funded grass roots organisations to hold the line.

I meant to add that this is a direct challenge to their authority and they need to respond.

Well. I hope that gets spread around, us widely read.

The anger inherent in that on this specific topic is very telling.

It's really important but it took a month for them to write..guess they were busy.

I agree that the fence sitting hasn't been a neutral position and isn't without consequences.

Well, now they know they can do something about it.

From the letter itself:

"We are also concerned about possible policy divergence between our Commissions in relation to the UK Government’s proposals to replace the Human Rights Act, noting that we were unable to agree a common response to these in December 2021."

It would be interesting to know what the disagreement was in that case.

The HRA is an interesting one for devolution as a combination between that and the Scotland Act means the Scottish Parliament is no competent to legislate against the ECHR.

And what has the EHRC said causing this massive tantrum?

That other people still have rights too.

Yeah, nuff said.

I wanted to post the paragraph of the letter where she demands to know why the EHRC has changed its position on GRA reform - or as I interpret it, why have you stopped following the Stonewall diktat? - but it's a pdf file and I couldn't get it to save in a different file format that would be copyable.

It is so pointed and petulant, demanding the detailed rationale for the EHRC's change. As Apollo mentioned above about bringing home, it certainly brought home to me the damage done in those five years of capture under the regime of the previous the chair and chief executive of EHRC.

Ref the dates, the letter was written on 11 Feb and asked for the meeting before 11 March, when Judith Robertson is due to 'demit' - I'm guessing that means it's the end of her term of appointment.

And isn't the 2nd March supposed to be when they are bringing the Bill for gender self identity? It all seems very close.