Why are you changing our Human Rights?

 

The Government are asking people their views on Human Rights legislation via a consultation (only a week to go). Please make your own mind up; however, it is my view that the Act is misunderstood, and is portrayed as a free for all, for all sorts of wrongs in our society. This, from my understanding of the Act, is as far from the truth as possible.

Most people think our Human Rights (HRA) started in 1998, as part of being in Europe. This again is a much misunderstood fallacy. It is not a tool for the left or right parties to use as they wish or to lay blame. The main parts of the rights have always been a part of UK law, built up over a hundreds of years through the common law system. The only difference it made in 1998,  was that as the common law wasn’t written down,  when the act was brought in, 

it was just a piece of paper, making it official. It didn't change anything. The one positive thing it did do was,  that previously if you wanted to challenge the government, you had to go to Strasbourg to argue your case. Bringing it into the UK law system allowed people more efficiency and time-saving as it now meant a person could argue their rights in any UK court of law.

Another common misconception is that it can be used anytime, anywhere, for any argument. Where as it only comes into play where the government or any of its departments, including local authorities and the NHS, infringes upon one of the rights. Thus, if your neighbour tells you to turn your music down, it's not an infringement of your human rights as there is no government involvement.

The other important factor is that not all human rights have the same weight in law; some are absolute like life or freedom from torture. These are known as inalienable rights. The government can't take these away. Generally, so they say.

But here's an example of how a certain government has similar rules but gets around it. Say your a country and there's this bit of country that belongs to a neighbour which you've "borrowed". Now say you had some prisoners of war that you really needed to "talk” to. If those prisoners were kept on your neighbours land, you could argue you could treat them differently as your laws only apply to your country. As they are in essence in no man's land, they do not have the same rights.

Other rights like right to private family life or even right to trial can be taken away from people in certain circumstances. The right to private family life, for instance, is often breached by government investigators. The reason being this right is subjective to you not being involved in criminal activity or fraud. If you are involved in such, then via additional legislation, in this case, the regulation of investigatory powers acts; these rights can be infringed. However, there are very stringent guidelines, lots of forms, and authorisations are required. Similarly, the right to a fair trial has been pushed aside via legislation in the anti terrorism legislation. The arguments being there is a greater good that we need to look out for.

The third set of rights often only comes in when another right has also been infringed, such as equality or discrimination. 

People should remember that they have these due to not wanting world wars! It was brought in to help all of us. There is an argument that others have changed their rights by bringing in additional pieces of legislation.  True, but they haven't touched or changed the original, which is what is purposed in the Bill of Rights others rights have been added for the good of the people not for party politics.

The recent arguments for the change and introduction of a Bill of Rights make no sense to me. It's OK to make a bill of rights, but this should only be to strengthen our freedom. None of the proposals suggested in the consultation document make any sense in reality.

The argument that Europe ruled over us is nonsense; each country has the right to make its own laws. The aim of  unification was to aid trade and not stop people's rights. The way we interpreted European rights in this country and embedded them has always been a little strange. In Europe, most other countries would take European legislation and say thats it and attach it to their countries law. In England, we will look at the legislation and try to interpret it, losing some of its essential purposes and causing issues in interpretation.

In a lot of cases European courts have taken a more wider approach to interpretation, basing it on what are we trying to achieve here, rather than do what it says on the tin. The rights for carers in this country is one of those. Our courts said the disability acts protect disabled people not others. Europe said that's nonsensical as the idea is to stop discrimination and by helping carers you help the disabled (The Coleman case).

The argument that European courts have too much power has these days been shifted to our courts have too much power. This is one of the points the government wants to change in the Bill of Rights. From defeat, after defeat, in the courts over various policies that are unfair. The government has decided to try and argue that they do not have sovereignty anymore. First it was Europe who has too much power, now it's our own courts have too much power. What next the people have too much say? Even when the courts have made decisions, I have seen many instances that the government or associated departments have just ignored these and carried on, (Norfolk Judicial Review on Care costs or garden parties anyone). What is the point of law if we don't follow it? Are we really to become a society without the rule of law? Making it up as it goes along?

 Let's take this argument that courts are changing or making the law. The judges have strict rules that they follow when interpreting the law, to such a stage that nowadays they even have the opportunity to look at Hansard in the commons. Hansard is basically a book where every word discussed in Parliament is written down. Every argument is minuted. So, if a judge is unsure as to parliaments meaning, they can refer to it.

The only real argument here is, that should one person have all the power to make law? Did we not fight wars both in England and the world to stop this type of power?

If you read the consultation carefully, what in essence is happening is your not getting any rights, the party in charge is. But please make your own decision.

Link to consultation

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/human-rights-act-reform-a-modern-bill-of-rights