“Human rights” includes not only freedom of thought, conscience and religion but several other elements with a religious dimension – and the debate over the future of the HRA 1998 rumbles on. Bob Morris, who will be no stranger to readers of this blog, has kindly allowed us to cross-post the following, co-written with Professor Robert Hazell. It first appeared on the UCL Constitution Unit Blog.
*******
Opposition from Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales could pose a serious challenge to Conservative plans to scrap the Human Rights Act. This is the first in a series of posts based on the Constitution Unit’s latest report, Devolution and the Future of the Union.
The Conservative manifesto, building on pledges in previous manifestos, contained these statements about replacing the Human Rights Act with a British bill of rights:
- We will scrap Labour’s Human Rights Act and introduce a British Bill of Rights which will restore common sense to the application of human rights in the UK. The Bill will remain faithful to the basic principles of human rights, which we signed up to in the original European Convention on Human Rights (p.73)
- The next Conservative Government will scrap the Human Rights Act, and introduce a British Bill of Rights. This will break the formal link between British courts and the European Court of Human Rights, and make our own Supreme Court the ultimate arbiter of human rights matters in the UK (p.60).