We have the #RightsRemovalBill. It’s worse than I feared. Here are top lines from first read:
S(1) repeals obligation on courts to read legislation in a way that is compatible with human rights & attempts to take away judicial role in deciding balance of rights S3 rejects the European Court of Human Rights’ authority as final arbiter of human rights & requires that UK courts do not adopt definitions of rights that go broader than the European Court

BREAKING: The moment we feared is here. Tonight the Government has announced scrapping the Human Rights Act & introducing a Bill of Rights. Here's what you need to know about this regressive & scary step...🧵

https://twitter.com/guardiannews/status/1539352640236437504

1. Enshrines the toxic idea of rights being conditional on good behaviour. Rights become gifts the state can take away if it deems you to be troublesome. This means impunity for rights abuses, particularly against people in prison, police custody, protestors

Today MPs are scrutinising the Public Order Bill. Here's what you need to know about this Government's latest brazen attempt to criminalise protest. The Bill regurgitates oppressive proposals that Parliament already rejected once, & it goes further...🧵
bills.parliament.uk/bills/3153/pub… 1) Serious Disruption Prevention Orders aka Protest Banning Orders: legal orders that ban people from protesting even if not convicted of a crime. In the Home Office's own words "a banning order would completely remove an individual's right to attend a protest"

I became a human rights lawyer because I saw injustice & abuses of power & witnessed how the Human Rights Act was often the only way to hold the state to account. Today the Government will announce their plan to scrap it. More power for them, fewer rights for us...🧵 The basics: the Human Rights Act puts all state bodies - police, prisons, hospitals, government, local authorities, schools - under a legal obligation to respect our rights. If they violate our rights, we can take them to court & get justice…for now

BREAKING BAD NEWS: today Gvt launch their attack on the Human Rights Act. Detail to follow, headlines are:
1. Stripping away right to family & private life. This will hit everyone wanting to protect their private data, fight an eviction, secure LGBT equality, resist surveillance This one is peddled as being about deportation. Human rights are universal - take them from one group & you take them from all of us. You only need to take a look at the #NationalityandBordersBill to see that this Gvt is bent on using the idea of citizenship to take away rights

Meanwhile over in the accountability corner, amendments to the Judicial Review Bill are a brazen attempt to shield some of the most unaccountable & far reaching state powers from scrutiny... This one stops judicial review of the investigatory powers tribunal - a secretive court making decisions about the (il)legality of state surveillance. State surveillance operates in the shadows: this amendment would mean the light will never get in

Amendments to #PolicingBill make it even more of a bin of iniquity - extension of racist, suspicionless stop & search, creation of criminal offence of "locking on" which you could be guilty of if you cause "serious disruption" to just 2 people & could land you in jail for 51 wks Being in possession of objects you might use "in connection with" locking on also a crime - super glue, bike locks, string, who knows. Then there's the dystopian "serious disruption prevention orders" because disruptive protest is bad, right Greta?