'The surest way of securing fundamental rights isn’t through law or the courts, but by living in a country and electing governments which will uphold them' // Andrew Tickell (PeatWorrier)
WHEN the Human Rights Act was introduced in the UK in 1998, it was about “bringing rights home”. The European Convention on Human Rights was drafted in the aftermath of the Second World War. It concerns basic civil and political rights – from the right to life and to be free from torture and inhuman and degrading treatment – to the right to a fair trial, to privacy, liberty, free expression, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of assembly.
One of the most startling examples of the implications of this in practice was the case of Smith and Grady. Jeanette Smith and Graeme Grady served in the RAF. Both showed every evidence of being good workers. Both were marked for promotion. And then, in the early 1990s, both were investigated and discharged from the RAF because they were gay. Smith was turned in to military authorities by an anonymous phone call. Military police searched Grady’s home.
The Act does other important things. It says it is unlawful for any public authority to violate Convention rights in the UK. This means the police and courts – but it also means universities, hospitals, local councils, government departments. It says that courts should interpret the whole statute book in a way which gives effect to human rights – and it gives them the authority, if they cannot do so, to declare that legislation is incompatible with fundamental rights.
politicians as keeping the devolved legislatures in line and demonstrating Scottish Government incompetence.don’t notice the contradictions in their position tells you everything you need to know about where devolved institutions fall in their constitutional imagination. Rules are for other people. Parliamentary sovereignty is the whole game.
The folk running around saying the Bill of Rights is a “constitutional matter” and therefore reserved to Westminster are talking out of their hats. Even the UK Government accepts its proposals will make serious inroads into devolved competencies. The Bill of Rights does both. But being a constitutional convention – one of the outgrowths of the “good chaps” theory of British government – Sewel is all gums and no teeth. Despite being written into law, the UK Supreme Court gave short shrift to suggestions the convention should be legally enforceable. Holyrood will not consent to these changes. Westminster is guaranteed to impose them anyway.
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