open Democracy News Analysis - Do you “deserve” your rights?, James Graham - Comments

fredrickpartisanscruff on "Do you “deserve” your rights?"

fredrickpartisanscruff — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:58:20 +0000

Good article. If the Tories could drop this brutish line of reasoning then perhaps we could take their policy on British Bill of Rights and responsibilities a little bit more seriously.

The idea that there is some justification in this logic because it merely reflects popular sentiment is simply to allow the discourse on human rights to wash through the political sphere; “oh, I’m just the mouth piece of popular sentiment, of course, I don’t really believe this puerile nonsense.”

Sadly it seems that they might, raising the arcane spectre of the concept of a “civic death,” i.e. that prisoners have fully forfeited their right to be a member of society and takes it one step further: one can actually forfeit their right to be a fully realised human! They are, instead, not human (or British?) enough to have those rights, (or should I say priveleges?).

One must wonder if Grieve doesn’t think, “we should just lock them all up and throw away the key, that’s what I say!”

I seem to remember the preamble of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights mentioned the “inalienable rights of all members of the human family.” So, if you will permit me to indulge in some brutish logic of my own; Grieve seems to be saying, in public, that the Universal Declaration got it wrong and that perhaps we should reconsider the “inalienable” part of the Convention.

“Grieve thinks that the Universal Declaration got it wrong; should be Universal except for really nasty people, and possibly those we don’t like (or are suspicious of; or have an ASBO; or haven’t been convicted of a terrorist offence; or ...; or...)”

- Not snappy enough to be a Sun headline.

Of course, one must permit the retort that “Grieve is a Burke(an)”

Tim J –your point is a valid one, just scrapping the HRA wouldn’t mean the UK would have to leave the Council of Europe or the EU. However, Grieve’s sentiments (i.e. incorporating the notion of forfeiture into the “right holders” legal position) if they found there way into law, go much further than this. They would be given a very tough time in the European Court of Human Rights; I have no doubt whatsoever that Strasbourg would find against the UK using such a notion – do you really think it would be a proportionate restriction? – the legitimate aim might be hard to find as well, and that’s just the qualified rights. Indeed, they’d be given a hard time in the British courts, where I think the common law may have been invigorated by the Human Rights Act more than politicians care to realise.

Finally if we ever actually get a Lisbon treaty then the fact that it accedes to the ECHR would mean that it might be difficult not to provide effective national remedies for human rights infringements (as defined by the Strasbourg court) - of course how this would work in practice remains to be seen.

Tim J on "Do you “deserve” your rights?"

Tim J — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:52:37 +0000

"we would have to leave the Council of Europe and subsequently the EU"

I think this is a bit of a misunderstanding of both the position under European law and the Conservative proposals - though it's such a widespread one that I'm certainly not blaming you for it.

The requirement is that Britain recognise the European Convention on Human Rights (the old 1950 statement of principles). Until the creation of the HRA in 1998 it was not thought necessary for Britain to enact specific legislation encompassing the ECHR, as it was considered that the broad principles espoused by it were covered under British statutory and common law.

So a straight abolition of the HRA would bring Britain back to where we were in 1998 - when British citizens had a right to appeal to the ECHR (the court one) if they felt their position under the Convention was being denied.

If we abnegated from the ECHR, then yes we would have to leave the Council of Europe and thus the EU, but that's not what the Tories are suggesting.

We can get on to the merits of what the Tories seem to be advocating through their 'Bill of Rights' stuff later if you want, but it does need to be said that if the British Government abolished the HRA tomorrow, it would have precisely no effect whatsoever on our legal constitutional relationship with the EU.

Do you “deserve” your rights?, James Graham

James Graham — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 13:21:10 +0000

James Graham (Quaequam Blog!): Anyone who thinks our civil liberties will be any better protected by a Conservative Government should think again. Speaking in Bangor (the Northern Ireland flavour) on Friday, the News Letter reports Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve saying:

… there is “a rights culture” which is “out of control”, not just in Ulster, but throughout the UK.

It did not help that “the undeserving in society” can often use rights legislation for personal gain, he added.

The Conservatives, he suggested, intend to create a UK Bill of Rights which would have in-built safeguards to prevent those “whose own behaviour is lacking” from abusing the powers.

I’m used to people from across the political spectrum differentiating between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor when it comes to welfare but not when it comes to fundamental rights. This rhetoric even goes beyond the talk about “rights and duties.”

In fairness to Labour, even the Jack Straws of this world have fallen short of using language as stark as this. Michael Wills was arguing last month that by “responsibilities” all they are talking about is the vague rhetoric about responsibilities that you can find in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and I have heard Straw on more than one occasion insist that by “duties” he means nothing more than the riders which can be found in the European Convention. Of course, that doesn’t stop them from using loaded rhetoric whenever they want to court favour with the Daily Mail.

I suspect that tailoring your rhetoric to suit your (in this case the dinosaurs in the DUP and UUP) audience is something that Grieve himself is guilty of here but even at their best, the Tories don’t offer the same reassurances that Labour do. It is rank cowardice on their part not to call for its outright rejection, rooted in a knowledge that it would make us the pariahs of Europe (we would have to leave the Council of Europe and subsequently the EU). More to the point, he is talking tosh: when challenged, the anti-HRA brigade consistently fail to come up with concrete examples of how eeeeevil people are using it for “personal gain.”

I don’t actually think the Tories mean all this nonsense. I do fear however that if they regain control the constant undermining of the HRA that Labour are guilty of will be turned up several notches.

And let’s not forget that Grieve is a supposed “wet” - just imagine how much further his own backbenchers will want to push him? And before you carp “never mind this human rights nonsense, at least the Tories will be better on civil liberties” - nu-uh.