Tory rebellion over Cameron’s plans to scrap the Human Rights Act (#politics #ToriesOutNow)

One of Cameron’s power-crazed plans is to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a ‘Bill of Rights’.

The move is intended to remove the checks and balances in place which stop the government abusing its power and citizens.

Under current legislation, the government is accountable for breaches of human rights articles contained in the European Convention on Human Rights.

Checking the record of the British government in cases at the European Court of Human Rights reveals a less than glowing record, falling far behind many other European countries.

European Court of Human Rights – Violation Statistics 1959 to 2014 – Number of judgements finding at least one violation. (Lower numbers are better). The United Kingdom is 36^th out of 47 on the list.

1959 – 2014

Rank	Country	Total
1	Monaco	2
2	Andorra	3
3	Liechtenstein	5
4	San Marino	9
5	Iceland	12
6	Denmark	14
7	Montenegro	17
8	Ireland	21
9	Norway	27
10	Luxembourg	32
11	Estonia	34
12	Bosnia Herzegovina	35
13	Albania	40
14	Malta	43
15	Georgia	46
16	Armenia	47
17	Cyprus	52
18	Sweden	56
19	Lithuania	81
20	Azerbaijan	83
21	Latvia	83
22	Spain	84
23	Netherlands	85
24	Switzerland	94
25	Republic of Macedonia	99
26	Serbia	101
27	Finland	133
28	Belgium	148
29	Germany	176
30	Czech Republic	183
31	Portugal	216
32	Croatia	240
33	Austria	245
34	Republic of Moldova	270
35	Slovak Republic	287
36	United Kingdom	301
37	Slovenia	304
38	Hungary	346
39	Bulgaria	496
40	France	691
41	Greece	744
42	Poland	905
43	Ukraine	987
44	Italy	1760
45	Romania	1 004
46	Russian Federation	1 503
47	Turkey	2 733

 

European Court of Human Rights – Violation Statistics 2014 – Number of judgements finding at least one violation. (Lower numbers are better). The United Kingdom joint 5^th on the list.

2014

Rank	Country	Total
1	Andorra	0
	Cyprus	0
	Denmark	0
	Liechtenstein	0
	Luxembourg	0
	Monaco	0
	San Marino	0
2	Georgia	1
	Iceland	1
	Ireland	1
	Montenegro	1
3	Norway	2
	Sweden	2
4	Austria	3
	Germany	3
	Lithuania	3
	Malta	3
	Netherlands	3
5	Albania	4
	Armenia	4
	Czech Republic	4
	Finland	4
	Spain	4
	United Kingdom	4
6	Bosnia Herzegovina	5
	Estonia	5
7	Republic of Macedonia	6
8	Switzerland	8
9	Azerbaijan	11
10	Slovak Republic	13
11	Belgium	16
	Latvia	16
	Serbia	16
12	France	17
13	Bulgaria	18
	Portugal	18
14	Poland	20
15	Republic of Moldova	21
16	Croatia	23
17	Slovenia	29
18	Italy	39
	Ukraine	39
19	Hungary	49
20	Greece	50
21	Romania	74
22	Turkey	94
23	Russian Federation	122

 

So as you can see from official statistics, the United Kingdom has a long way to go before we can have any confidence that the government are going to adhere to basic concepts of human rights, let alone produce legislation that is fair and appropriate.

The government often cite current human rights legislation as a barrier to taking action against undesirables – especially the deportation of extremists and terrorists.

The reality is that the only reason those high-profile deportations became problematic was because of the incompetence of Theresa May and her associations. They failed to ensure basic evidential requirements were in place before going to the European Court.

The government (and others who are ignorant of the facts) claim that current human rights legislation allows anyone to automatically be protected under the Articles it contains full stop.

This is incorrect. Each Article has specific exclusions which give governments the power to take action against anyone who is a real threat.

There is no practical advantage or reason to society in changing current legislation. In fact, Cameron’s proposed changes will have a significant adverse effect on every citizen in the country.

Another problem is that the current government may be able to push through legislation which is detrimental to the population of the UK because the Conservatives now have a majority in parliament.

However, not all Conservative MPs are going to support Cameron’s proposed changes.

The Independent reveals that Cameron is facing a backbench revolt with a former aide to the new Justice Secretary Michael Gove warning that they have less than a 5 per cent chance of being implemented.

The Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond is also expected to meet fierce opposition to the plans when he attends a Council of Europe meeting of foreign ministers next week.

He is expected to be told that the current Tory proposals, that would allow the UK Parliament to opt out of rulings by the ECHR that it disagreed with, would be incompatible with its obligations under Convention of Human Rights. This could even lead to Britain’s expulsion from the organisation it helped found in the wake of the Second World War.

The Conservatives came up with their plan after the European Court ruled that prohibiting prisoners from voting “was incompatible with the Convention will be treated as advisory” and could be ignored by Parliament. Of course, the majority of prisoners are not really likely to vote for the Conservatives, which is the most likely driving force behind Cameron’s plans.

The plans face strong opposition from both the legal profession and senior Conservatives including the former Lord Chancellor Ken Clarke and the former Attorney General Dominic Grieve.

One Conservative backbencher told The Independent plans were “legally incoherent” and predicted Mr Cameron would face a Commons defeat if he attempted to make anything more than cosmetic changes to the current laws.

“If what emerges is a lot of sound and fury but no attempt to fiddle with fundamental rights as set down by the  Convention then what we have is the Human Rights Act in all but name and that will be fine,” they said.

 

“But if there is any fundamental attempt to move away from that position then it will be dead in the water. Any such proposals will be torn to shreds by people like Dominic Grieve and many others who actually understand how our constitution works.”

Senior legal figures have also warned the proposals will face strong private opposition from the judiciary who are concerned at the potential to ride roughshod over more than 50 years of human rights advances both in the UK and Europe.

Hugh Tomlinson QC, an expert on human rights law and founder of the United Kingdom Supreme Court blog said the proposals were “fraught with legal and political difficulties” which appeared to be “insoluble”.

“Not only will ministers have to deal with domestic constitutional problems of scrapping the Human Rights Act which is incorporated into the Scotland Act and Good Friday Agreement but the international ramifications are also profound.”

The change to human rights legislation is part of Cameron’s so-called ‘100-day policy offensive’ during which he and his cronies will attempt to make radical changes to Britain in an attempt to introduce ever more oppressive legislation, forcing the majority of the UK into economic slavery.

So far, Cameron has not revealed any policy which will be to the benefit of the country as a whole. The only policies we have heard of so far are designed to strengthen government power and to disempower the people.

We need to be very cautious of their devious and underhand tactics or we will regret this government ever being allowed to take office.

  “Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.”– George Bernard Shaw

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