Thread by @StevePeers

The TCA includes a reference to the importance of giving domestic legal effect to the ECHR in the criminal law part of the TCA. However, repealing the HRA would not automatically terminate the treaty as a whole or its criminal law part. 1/

https://twitter.com/mafevema/status/1445440227435237381

2/ Nor is there a fast-track route to termination of the TCA, or its criminal law part, explicitly on the ground that the UK repeals the HRA.

3/ If, on the other hand, the UK denounced the ECHR, or the protocols to the ECHR which the UK has ratified, there is a fast track to terminate the criminal law part of the TCA.

4/ There are also provisions in the TCA which allow for its (non-automatic) partial or whole suspension and termination on other human rights grounds, which don't explicitly refer to repealing the HRA. The EU might decide to trigger them in the event of UK repealing HRA.

5/ First of all, the whole TCA can be terminated or suspended due to breach of its 'essential elements', which include human rights generally (no specific mention of ECHR or HRA).

6/ But this is a high threshold: this clause should only be used if the breach of essential elements is 'of an exceptional sort that threatens peace and security or that has international repercussions'.

7/ Secondly, the criminal law part can be suspended in 'the event of serious and systemic deficiencies within one Party as regards the protection of fundamental rights or the principle of the rule of law'. No explicit mention of the HRA but its repeal could obviously be relevant.

8/ None of this is automatic, but in the event that the EU did not react to ECHR denunciation/repeal of the HRA by the UK, there would likely be legal challenges via national courts and the CJEU - extradition cases in particular often raise such issues.

9/ Also, as @J_R_Doyle reminds me, there is an internal political commitment by the EU to terminate or suspend criminal law cooperation under the TCA in the event of ECHR denunciation/HRA repeal by the UK -

https://twitter.com/StevePeers/status/1386692004638298112?s=20

10/ I've written about human rights and the Brexit deal in more detail here: eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/2021/01/analys…