British Prime Minister David Cameron’s newly appointed Justice Secretary has been tasked with drafting a new Human Rights Act. The current Human Rights Act 1998 was introduced by the then Labour Government under Prime Minister Tony Blair. Replacing the UK Human Rights Act 1998 had been high on the Tory party agenda in the build up to and throughout the recent UK general election.
The Tory party’s position in this regard was laid out in an 8 page strategy paper entitled ‘Protecting Human Rights in the UK’. The strategy paper was published in October 2014. The Tory party report outlines a number of issues they believe are wrong with the current Human Rights Act, most notably the overarching influence of the European Court of Human Rights. According to the report the most damning indictment of the current Human Rights infrastructure is that it has undermined the “democratic and sovereign accountability of the United Kingdom”.
A host of new changes are to be introduced under the new draft legislation. Foremost of these changes will be the non-legally binding nature of European Court decisions on the British Government thus reducing the European Court’s power to force changes to current UK laws. Under the draft legislation future decisions of the European Court will have advisory status and will require a vote at UK parliament level before any change to UK law can be made. Furthermore, the draft legislation would ban legal actions against the UK Government which are deemed to be trivial in nature.
Click here to read an article in the Irish Times on the new Human Rights Act.
Click here to read the Tory Party ‘Protecting Human Rights in the UK’ strategy report.
Click here to read a previous Bulletin article on the Tory party’s plans to overhaul the Human Rights Act.