The Human Rights Act doesn’t need to be reformed or replaced – it needs to be appreciated

When it comes to the human rights legislation, the media tend to focus on the most controversial cases – such as prisoners’ voting rights or Abu Qatadar’s extradition. As a result, in this febrile atmosphere there has been a serious failure (perhaps a deliberate one) to acknowledge the extent to which the European Convention and other international instruments are the foundation of collective bargaining rights and the right to take collective action.

The Human Rights Act and the European Convention affect many aspects of trade union operations and the workplace rights of their members. In particular, Article 11 of the Convention protects every EU citizen’s right to freedom of assembly and association. For unions in the UK currently facing an increasingly hostile anti-union political agenda these rights act as a vital bulwark against any further action designed to undermine worker’s rights.

Looking forward, we remain deeply sceptical of recent calls to replace or reform the human rights regimen with a new UK Bill of Rights.

In their 2008 report ‘A Bill of Rights for the UK?’, the Joint Committee on Human Rights said that any bill of rights would have to be “ECHR plus”. In other words, it wasn’t to be an excuse to reshape and water down the European Convention rights as the UK is a signatory and EU membership is conditional upon its domestic adoption at the member state level.

In our experience at Thompsons, the Human Rights Act performs reasonably well as a carefully-calibrated mechanism for incorporating European Convention rights into UK law, balancing both parliamentary sovereignty and the UK’s democratic traditions. Consequently, there would seem to be no compelling case for trying to improve upon that by creating a new UK Bill of Rights.

Any suggestion of replacing the Human Rights Act seems to be heavily, if not exclusively, rooted in the Conservative Party’s and the tabloids’ disdain for human rights legislation in general and the EU in particular. It has absolutely nothing to do with wanting to improve upon the existing legal arrangements, which help union members seek and secure justice on a daily basis.

Richard Arthur is Head of Trade Union Law at Thompsons Solicitors. The full text of Thompsons’ consultation response can be found here: Consultation Response.