ECHR as the next battleground for the rights of women and children

[Ingenieur]

I have started this thread to avoid derailing a previous one.

Original thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4852476-tougher-transgender-guidance-for-schools-is-unlawful-sunak-told?page=1

It was suggested there that the ECHR would be an impediment to rescinding or fundamentally changing the GRA or the gender reassignment parts of the Equality Act. This is on the basis that membership of the European Convention on Human Rights would not permit the unwinding of existing rights, even if it does not force member nations to comply.

I know most of us do not practise law, and even fewer are international or constitutional lawyers, but I'd like to understand more of the nuance surrounding this aspect of our fight.

As a starter for 10, is this even true? Is leaving the ECHR the only solition to unwinding these laws?

Also, looking at the ECHR summary of the Goodwin case, it states the following:

Since there [we]re no significant factors of public interest to weigh against the interest of this individual applicant in obtaining legal recognition of her gender re-assignment, the Court reache[d] the conclusion that the notion of fair balance inherent in the Convention now tilt[ed] decisively in favour of the applicant.

It is astonishing that a case which overturned a number of previous ECHR Article 8 and Article 12 cases was judged on the basis of public interest, and that no public interest was noted.

Seems like a bit of a mess.

It seems to me women have to accept anyone in their space due to the GFA

Although I’m not sure as the pp seemed a bit odd and now I don’t know about the EqA and changing the definition

Being outside the ECHR is not a problem to me, I’ve lived where we were not part of it. They score slightly better than those within it anyway.

Same, plenty of other countries manage just fine without being part of this specific human institution. Nothing magical about it.

As a woman it seems fundamentally flawed to me.

We get a good grade if women concede to men

Bloody hell. How did we get here.

There are already different laws regarding gender recognition in Ireland and NI. That's because the Republic of Ireland is a different country from NI, which is part of the UK. In Ireland they have had self-ID since about 2015 (not sure of the exact date).

This has nothing to do with ECHR.

Overturning the Good Friday Agreement is your new cause? Fair enough. I hope you realise how unhinged that is though.

Part of the reason the ECHR is reflected in the GFA is to provide a common floor in terms of human rights protections. Of course jurisdictions can go beyond that floor, but the point is that GFA provided a guarantee that NI and Ireland would never fall below that floor.

Repealing the GRA and leaving the ECHR would remove that key element and leave the GFA in tatters.

So are you another one who is fine with - or actively supportive of - ripping up the GFA?

So women and girls just have to lump it with men getting access no matter what?

That can’t be right. That can’t be the society we want our dd’s to inherit surely.

x post

I just can’t accept women and girls have to concede

I know it’s unpalatable to some. But I care too deeply about us

I'm not fine with the human rights "floor" as you put it being the ability of men to lie about being women and have everyone else forced to go along with it.

To be honest, I don't think the average NI resident (unionist or republican) is particularly onboard with that either.

The GFA isn't magic, it's an agreement that no longer seems fit for purpose (and this is a wider question beyond the GRA issue).

@PlanetJanette do you want the GRA repealed or not? Yes or no.

How many of those countries had peace agreements that ended a conflict costing thousands of lives that were reliant on membership of the ECHR?

@PlanetJanette similar question

If you could ensure single sex spaces for women (defined as sex based) without the GFA issue would you?

Answer mine and I'll answer yours ;)

How do you think women and girls fared during the troubles?

Let's just repeal the GRA. It's a homophobic, misogynistic bit of legislation. It needs to go.

I should have thought it’s pretty obvious that I don’t think the GRA should be repealed.

I’m afraid you’re demonstrating a dreadful understanding (or worse a callous disregard) of the reality of the Troubles by glibly declaring the GFA is not fit for purpose.

There are many reasons the GFA need improvements - but achieving that requires cross-party consensus and there will never be cross-party consensus to remove the requirements for the ECHR.

Not so!

Interesting bit of tag teaming here - one person utterly insistent that somehow the ECHR blocks GRA repeal - an immensely dubious proposition - and then the next one pops up to denounce anyone suggesting leaving the ECHR to unblock it.

We're vanishing down a rabbit-hole of daft hypothetical scenarios based on unsupported assertions.

How about we just go ahead and repeal the GRA?

Anyone who feels inconvenienced by the GRA being repealed can drag it through the courts again. And let's see how their arguments about "no harm" and falsifying their sex being vital to their human rights hold up in 2023.

Well we can’t ‘just repeal’ it.

we’d have to leave the ECHR and rip up the Good Friday Agreement.

Unless you can explain why a return to the Troubles is an acceptable outcome, then no, we can’t ‘just repeal the GRA’.

Jolyon Maugham on the hunt for the next grift?

Yes we get that. But what are your views on women and girls having single sex spaces without the GFA issue?

Ministers and civil servants can’t break the law.

Repealing the GRA would be contrary to international law unless and until we withdraw from the ECHR.

we’d have to leave the ECHR and rip up the Good Friday Agreement.

Of course you don't. But as signatories to the ECHR, we would no doubt have to fight it in the ECHR again, because someone would drag it up to that level again.

But the circumstances have changed. The result could well be different. The arguments in favour of sex falsification are now much weaker, given all the increased rights otherwise, and the arguments against it are now much clearer and stronger.

Repealing the GRA would be contrary to international law unless and until we withdraw from the ECHR.

That would be up to anyone objecting to it to prove in court.

The government should of course give PlanetJanette's legal advice the appropriate weight.

I agree @NecessaryScene . Let's just do it. If it's really a problem for the ECHR, they will say so when someone challenges the law in a specific case before them.

If that happens, we deal with that then. But the case for repealing it will be crystallised in the public view.