Conservatives target human rights
22 January 2015 The Tories have drafted a replacement for the Human Rights Act, the Bill of Rights which plans to enable British judges to ignore rulings by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
22 January 2015
The Tories have drafted a replacement for the Human Rights Act, the Bill of Rights which plans to enable British judges to ignore rulings by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
The Bill of Rights drawn up by the Tories’ lawyers would mean that suspects and criminals would not be able to use their human right to family life to fight against deportation unless it was deemed an “exceptional” circumstance. The Conservatives claim that this would prevent criminals using Human Rights as a ‘get out of jail free card’.
The Bill would also ensure that trade union membership in the police could be banned and that rulings allowing prisoners the right to vote could be overturned.
Leading human rights lawyer Lord Pannick QC criticised the Bill’s architects as using the European Convention on Human Rights as “a political tool to be manipulated for narrow and partisan advantage”.
The IER has published experts’ analysis on what withdrawal from particular articles of the EHCR would mean for employment rights. Read them here:
Article 4: Prohibition of slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour
Article 8: Right to respect for private and family life
