Many Unhappy Returns of the Human Rights Act

Sunday, November 9th marks the tenth anniversary of Royal Assent to the Human Rights Act 1998, surely one of the most pernicious pieces of legislation ever passed by the mother of Parliaments.

The Human Rights Act (HRA) was intended to enshrine the European Convention of Human Rights in English law.  The HRA’s proponents argued that it was invidious for complainants to be forced to travel to Strasbourg to obtain ‘justice’ in human rights matters, rather than having a remedy in the British courts.

The Left often seek to portray any opposition to the Human Rights Act as being synonymous with opposition to the very idea of fundamental rights, but of course that is just typical left-wing sophistry.  In fact, the Human Rights Act has never had much to do with the protection of genuine rights and freedoms.   At best, the Human Rights Act has been ineffective; at worst it has created a toxic culture of faux rights and impunity for the guilty and undeserving. It has also done much to undermine the foundations of the English legal system.

The ink was scarcely dry on the Human Rights Act in 1998 when Labour ministers began a crusade against ancestral British freedoms, which has succeeded in curtailing genuine rights and liberties in almost every walk of life.  Even as Labour breezily twittered the language of human rights, they imposed the ‘surveillance society’, restricted traditional British free speech and subverted the democratic system. 

Ten years after the Human Rights Act, we now live in a society where every email and telephone call is to be recorded and logged by the State.   Free speech has been eroded by successive racial and religious “hate” laws which have made Britons terrified of speaking their mind on any subject that might be deemed ‘politically incorrect’.  The right to trial by jury has been limited and the ancient legal protections against ‘double jeopardy’ have been abolished.  A freeborn Englishman can now be locked up without charge in his own land for longer than in any other western country.  For the first time since 1832, we cannot trust the integrity of our electoral system.   The Human Rights Act stands condemned by its failure to impede or delay any of these poisonous developments.

The European Convention of Human Rights, on which the Human Rights Act is based, was developed in the 1950s specifically to combat the sort of abuses characteristic of Nazi Germany, where people were hounded from their jobs and property solely on the grounds of their political or religious affiliations.  

After 50 years of the Convention and 10 years of the Act, it seems that nothing much has changed.   During the last month, a policeman in Manchester has been forced to resign for the ‘crime’ of wearing a BNP badge while off duty.   A BNP teacher, already sacked from his job for his politics, now faces being deprived of his teaching livelihood altogether at the whim of a General Teaching Council dominated by left-wing unionists.   Labour trade union leaders are even now demanding the right summarily to expel BNP members from trade unions.  BNP bus drivers, railwaymen, health workers and ballerinas have all faced politically-motivated repression without the benefit of any effective legal remedy.  Every police force in the land now operates a formal policy of institutional political discrimination against BNP supporters - and there are continual demands from Trevor Phillips, the Chairman of the bizarrely misnamed “Equality and Human Rights Commission” for this Stalinist policy to be extended to every branch of the public sector.

In contrast with its uniform failure to protect genuine rights and liberties, there are areas where the Human Rights Act has had a massively harmful impact.   It has prevented the just deportation of dangerous terrorists back to their native lands.  It has notoriously compelled Britain to harbour Afghan hijackers and guarantee them jobs.   The Human Rights Act has been used to argue the case of a schoolboy arsonist expelled from the classroom, a convicted rapist awarded £4000 compensation because his appeal was delayed; and even a burglar given taxpayers’ money to sue the man whose house he burgled.

If anything, the more insidious effects of the HRA have been still more damaging.  The Act requires judges to interpret statute law in accordance with the principles of the European Convention wherever possible.  Where this proves impossible, the HRA encourages judges to issue a “declaration of incompatibility” certifying that a particular law does not comply with “Human Rights” principles. In turn, this allows any “incompatible” statute law to be changed by a “fast track” procedure.  Overall, the practical effect is to elevate judge-made law above the sovereignty of Parliament.   Unaccountable, unfit and unelected judges can use vague Human Rights principles as blunt coshes to attack Acts of Parliament enacted after public debate by the duly-elected representatives of the British people.  The Human Rights Act represents just one more Labour nail in the coffin of British Parliamentary democracy, perhaps the greatest-ever invention of the world’s most inventive nation.

To add insult to injury, over the past ten years, a clique of left-wing Human Rights lawyers has grown fabulously wealthy from the rich pickings of the bogus Human Rights bonanza, a feat skilfully achieved without affording any worthwhile legal protection at all to the ordinary citizen.

Needless to say, the Human Rights Act would be repealed during the first term of a British Nationalist Government.  We should replace it with a British Bill of Rights, based on the best principles of Magna Carta and the original 1689 Bill of Rights.  This would not override any Statute, but would act as a resounding declaration of the fundamental tenets of British Liberty, including the rights of free speech, of jury trial, of habeas corpus and freedom from arbitrary detention and state surveillance, and of participation in a free and fair democratic political process.

Under a British Nationalist government, ancient and robust British freedoms would be restored, and the vacuous, alien jargon of Human Rights legislation would be exposed to the ridicule it so richly deserves.   The Human Rights Act has reached its tenth Birthday, but its days may yet be numbered!