Thread by @libertyhq

The Government's consultation on its proposed 'overhaul' of our #HumanRightsAct closes tomorrow.

This isn’t a plan to improve the system.

It’s an attempt to weaken everyone's human rights and hide from accountability for their actions.

⬇️EXPLAINER🧵 libertyhumanrights.org.uk/issue/explaine…

THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT

In a functioning democracy, people must be able to hold the powerful to account.

The #HumanRightsAct enables everyone in the UK to do just that and stand up for our rights when public authorities – like Gov + local councils – fall short.

The #HumanRightsAct protects us from misuse of power no matter who we are.

And it's helped bring a culture of respecting human rights into hospitals, schools, care homes, and housing associations – changing the way thousands of people are treated and supported.

REVIEW AND CONSULTATION

The 2019 Conservative manifesto promised to update the #HumanRightsAct.

Following their election victory, the Independent Human Rights Act Review (IHRAR) panel worked for 9months, producing a 580page report – which Gov has largely ignored.

Instead, Dominic Raab announced an ‘overhaul’ of the HRA before IHRAR had even reported back.

Then Gov opened a consultation in Dec that asks for views on proposals that were *rejected* by IHRAR.

IHRAR found no justification for Gov’s ‘overhaul’.

So what is Raab's plan?

OBLIGATIONS TO RESPECT RIGHTS

The #HumanRightsAct places duties on public authorities to respect our rights, and empowers people to enforce them in court if they don’t do so.

These "positive obligations" include:

🔘Armed Forces’ duty of care towards its soldiers
🔘police duty to properly investigate violent crimes towards women
🔘the duty to properly investigate deaths in suspicious circumstances
🔘the duty to protect children from neglect and abuse.

These obligations protect all of us, all the time – making sure the vast majority of people never have to start legal cases to enforce our rights.

But Gov wants to remove them, making it more difficult for public bodies to protect rights, and for people to challenge decisions.

PERMISSION STAGE

Speaking of making it harder to challenge decisions, Gov is proposing to add a ‘permission stage’ at the start of human rights legal cases.

This plan will mean that before a case can get off the ground, the person whose rights have been violated will have to show they have faced a “significant disadvantage” caused by the abuse of their rights.

Anyone who brings a human rights claim is already at a significant disadvantage: they're up against the power of a public body.

Adding an extra barrier to the courts – and justice – only widens this power divide even more.

The Government says it wants to "reduce the number of human rights-based claims".

⏸️wait, pause

Surely a better idea is enhancing access to justice and holding public bodies to account
➡️leading to a more rights-respecting culture
➡️resulting in fewer human rights cases

❓❓

WEAKENING LINK BETWEEN EURO AND UK COURTS

Gov says it has no plans to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.

Despite this, its proposals will weaken the link between UK law and the European Court, and leave the UK on a collision course with the Convention.

At the moment, the #HumanRightsAct requires UK courts to "take into account" European Court of Human Rights rulings.

They don’t have to follow them – which supports the independence of our courts – but they keep broadly in step.

Under Gov's plans, the meaning of a right in its planned bill of rights won’t be the same as its meaning in the Convention and UK judges won’t even have to take European judgments into account.

This will create uncertainty for all involved in a human rights legal challenge – the person whose rights have been abused, the public authority responsible, and the lawyers on both sides.

And it'll likely have the opposite effect to what Gov wants: more people taking time-consuming + costly trip to the Euro Court to enforce human rights no longer protected by UK law.

And then only people who can afford this will be able to challenge abuse of their rights.

PAST BEHAVIOUR

If you do manage to get to court and prove your rights were breached, Gov wants to limit compensation you get based on your past behaviour.

Human rights aren't conditional on good behaviour.

Everyone has human rights, and everyone’s rights must be protected.

MIGRANTS' RIGHTS

Gov's dropped the term 'human rights' for its 'British' bill of rights.

'Human' rights apply to everyone, but Raab has started talking only about protections for "UK citizens".

And several proposals revolve around making it harder to challenge deportation – essentially saying that some people (UK citizens) deserve rights, whereas others don’t.

This is one of many Gov attempts across multiple policies to weaponise people’s attempts to access their rights – which can involve issues of life and death, and/or their right to respect for their family life – in order to justify weakening protections for everyone.

When rights are weakened for one section of society, they are weakened for all of us.

This toxic narrative of who 'deserves' rights must be resisted.

SECONDARY LEGISLATION

Right now, judges can’t strike down Acts of Parliament (aka primary legislation) that breach human rights.

Instead, they can make a ‘declaration of incompatibility’ - basically informing Gov a law goes against rights, and Gov can choose to fix it or not.

But judges can strike down ‘secondary legislation’, which are laws that are made to give effect to the Act of Parliament.

These don't get the same level of debate as primary legislation - and Gov's made a habit of creating new laws this way to avoid scrutiny of its proposals.

And now, Gov's consultation suggests that judges should no longer be able to strike down secondary legislation, but instead only be able to make a declaration of incompatibility.

Convenient.

GOV ACCOUNTABILITY

Gov's proposals will weaken rights protections in the UK.

And the only people who benefit from weakening rights are those in power.

Right now, that is a government attempting to shut down all the ways people are able to hold it to account.

🔘#JudicialReviewBill will make it harder for people to challenge Gov’s actions in court

🔘#PolicingBill criminalising protests

🔘#VoterID to prevent millions having a say in elections

🔘Giving MPs and Peers little-to-no time to debate proposals.

FIGHT THIS POWER GRAB

The plan to replace the #HumanRightsAct with a British bill of rights isn't born of good will.

It's the summit of Gov’s ambitions to rewrite the rules to make itself untouchable.

Join the campaign to #SaveYourRights today action.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/page/81973/pet…

If you want to respond to the consultation, here are some resources to assist you

https://twitter.com/hyjpang_/status/1499401354288119808

But not everyone can respond to Gov's #HumanRightsAct consultation.

With one day left, Gov still hasn't published a proper easy-read doc or created the promised audio version.

Disgrace.
disabilitynewsservice.com/governments-un…