Human Rights Act Reform: the UK Government wants to rewrite our Human Rights Act

• Written by: Carlyn Miller — — Head of Policy and Programmes at the British Institute of Human Rights
• Published: 2nd March 2022

Carlyn Miller outlines her concerns on the UK Government’s consultation to replace our Human Rights Act.

*This blog was written in March 2022. The Rights Removal was presented in Parliament on 22 June.

On 14 December 2021, the UK Government released a new consultation paper (this link will take you away from our website) setting out its plans to replace our Human Rights Act with a Bill of Rights.

Our Human Rights Act provides minimum standards for how people should be treated when interacting with state bodies (national government, local government. local authorities, the NHS etc). It sets limits on the power of the state and sets out in law that state bodies must treat people with dignity, respect and without discrimination. If they don’t, they can be held to account in UK courts.

The UK Government wants to replace our Human Rights Act with a modern Bill of Rights. The suggested changes would have wide ranging effects on how all of us across the UK access our rights every day. This is also happening in a wider political context of rights regression (this link will take you away from our website) as other Bills of huge concern pass through the UK Parliament.

Some of my key concerns on the reform process and the proposals are summarised below:

The proposals for a new Bill of Rights have no democratic legitimacy. They largely ignore a public consultation and the recommendations of a Panel of independent experts.

The evidence for reforms is hard to find and relies on the public not understanding how our Human Rights Act works. To give just one example, Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab, recently relied on a specific immigration case from over a decade ago (this link will take you away from our website) in making his case for reform of our Human Rights Act. However, the law has since changed (this link will take you away from our website), and the “problem” he refers to has been fixed.

The consultation itself is inaccessible and discriminatory. An ‘Easy Read’ version was published on the 24 February, giving people who require alternative formats just 12 days to respond. This risks breaching the Equality Act, the Human Rights Act and the UK Government’s own consultation principles which say that a proportionate amount of time should be provided.

The proposals do not do enough to understand how these plans would impact Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There is one question in the consultation document which considers the impact on devolved nations. This is not an appropriate amount of space to consider the impact of these reforms constitutionally in devolved settings.

“The proposed changes to our Human Rights Act / the creation of a Bill of Rights does not take into account the foundational role of the Convention as a key pillar of Scottish devolution, nor consider how they would apply in practice in the Scottish judicial system. Furthermore, there is significant public support in Scotland to enhance our human rights law to bring more of our international rights home, not to push them further away.” – Mhairi Snowdon, Director of the Human Rights Consortium Scotland

The proposals would limit access to justice. Question 8 proposes, a “permissions stage” where people must demonstrate that they have suffered “significant disadvantage” in order for their case to be heard in court. It’s already difficult to get a human rights case to court. This would make it harder to even get in the door to take a case against the state.

The proposals suggest that there should be more focus on the “responsibilities” of individuals. Question 27 proposes an option where, “damages may be reduced in part or in full on account of the applicant’s wider conduct.” This includes conduct at any time, not simply in relation to the claim. This means that when a judge is deciding what remedy to give a person after a breach of their human rights, the judge can base that on whether they think the person has been “good” or “bad”.

The proposals suggest limiting the positive obligation on the state to protect rights. Question 11 asks views on how the Government can “limit the positive obligation on public authorities” to take action to protect people’s human rights. The positive obligation to protect rights is fundamental. For example, it is the reason victims of John Worboys, were able to take the Metropolitan Police to court for failures to protect their right to be free from inhuman and degrading treatment. It is the reason why, when someone dies in police custody, in a care setting or in prison there has to be a jury led inquest into what went wrong. It is the reason the Hillsborough families got a fresh inquest bringing them closer to justice.

“I don’t think we would have got the verdicts in April of this year if it hadn’t been for the Human Rights Act …. I think it’s probably one of the most important pieces of legislation that governs rights for UK citizens.” – Becky Shah, who lost her mum Inger.

The proposals suggest narrowing the scope of our right to private, family life, home and correspondence (Article 8) to allow them to deport more people. This goes against the key principle of universality. Limiting rights for one group, limits them for us all. This would limit how Article 8 applies everywhere, for all of us, all of the time. Article 8 protects us when we’re in hospitals, in care homes, in prisons. The government are preoccupied with deportation and are relying on people not understanding how the law works.

You can find out BIHR’s key concerns and access all of our resources and ways you can take action against the Bill on the BIHR website (this link will take you away from our website), including writing to your MP (this link will take you away from our website).

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