Repealing the Human Rights Act is nonsensical and dangerous

By David Carrington

The argument between the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Conservative Party has highlighted a fundamental issue at stake in the looming election. Keir Starmer spoke out against Cameron’s plan to repeal the Human Rights Act and found himself on the receiving end of a Conservative backlash for saying that he was proud to live in a country that safeguarded rights.

David Cameron and the Tories have repeatedly promised to scrap the Act, which incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. The drafting of the Convention was overseen by a future Conservative Lord Chancellor and Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, and heavily influenced by Churchill, but the current Conservative Party leader believes that its provisions amount to little more than a “criminals’ charter” and that “human rights…fly in the face of common sense”. Cameron’s opposition to the Convention may stem from his time in Michael Howard’s Home Office, which found itself on the wrong side of decisions handed down by the Court. Perhaps the Conservative leader is concerned that, should he find himself in office, he may be limited in how he uses it.

The statements of Cameron, The Sun and other opponents of the Act – that it gives licence to those that would threaten our society – are totally untrue as there are provisions in the Convention and in the Act allowing governments to step back from certain rights, but only if it is done in a limited and proportional way. In other words it means that the Government, whoever is in power, is subject to legal restraint and we have some protection.

Their opposition to this piece of legislation is as nonsensical as it is dangerous and “xenophobic” (Ken Clarke). The 1998 Act has enshrined provisions – such as the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion and the right to a fair trial – into UK law and is now even supported by some of its earlier right-wing opponents, like Peter Oborne. Instead, and true to form, the current Tory leadership chooses to pander to papers like The Sun with their dark anti-freedom agenda, regardless of the consequences.

The Act has brought vast and largely unheralded changes to this country’s constitution that should be treasured. It has empowered the courts to act in protecting the fundamental rights of those in our society who would otherwise have been left without recourse. The very purpose and language of human rights and civil liberties is to protect the minority against the majority and is an underlying necessity in a liberal, democratic and free society.

Separating power between the executive and judiciary and detailing rights is an idea that reaches back to John Locke and the origins of our system of government. In the nine years since the Act came into operation the courts have found against the Government and have done so to protect basic rights, such as preventing the Government from indefinitely detaining terror suspects without trial. The Act doesn’t prevent the Government from acting against those it suspects of terrorist activity, but it does ensure that this happens in the appropriate light of day.

It is true that the Act is not perfect, but to repeal it would remove a key safeguard for individuals against the potential abuse of governmental power and by doing so, the Conservative Party would simply succeed in demonstrating that the assertions of right-wingers, who claim to believe in freeing us from the “tyranny of the state” are nothing but hollow and cynical lies.