Newly appointed Justice Secretary Michael Gove will push ahead with Conservative plans to repeal the Human Rights Act \u2013 a move experts warn could spark a constitutional crisis and blight Britain\u2019s reputation on human rights worldwide.<\/p>\n
Conservative Party sources, fresh from last week\u2019s general election victory, told the Guardian the human rights reforms are imminent.<\/p>\n
Civil liberty advocates warn the soon-to-be implemented measures would erode the right to life, the right to privacy, the right to a fair trial, the right to protest and the right to freedom from torture and discrimination.<\/p>\n
Although the Tories were keen to push ahead with the legal changes during their last term in government, the move was blocked by the party\u2019s ex-coalition partner the Liberal Democrats. But as a majority government, the Conservatives are now poised to push ahead with the reforms.<\/p>\n
Central to the Tories’ election manifesto was a pledge to repeal the Human Rights Act (HRA) and significantly curb the power of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Britain. The legal reforms are expected to surface in PM David Cameron\u2019s plans for his first 100 days, which will be outlined in the Queen\u2019s Speech on May 27.<\/p>\n
Under these changes, the Conservatives would replace the HRA with a Tory-styled British Bill of Rights. Britain\u2019s Supreme Court would no longer be answerable to the ECHR, with the Strasbourg-based court losing the power to order changes to UK law.<\/p>\n
The plans were drawn up in 2014 by then-Secretary of State for Justice Chris Grayling. At the time, Grayling proposed Britain withdraw from the ECHR if the Council of Europe rejects the Conservatives\u2019 British Bill of Rights.<\/p>\n
Constitutional crisis<\/p>\n
Considerable doubt exists among experts that the Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog responsible for ensuring the Convention is upheld, will accept the Tories\u2019 proposals. As a result, it is widely believed Britain will disengage from the European Convention on Human Rights and undermine Europe\u2019s\u2019 civil liberties framework in the process.<\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s withdrawal from the ECHR has been strongly opposed by former Secretary of State for Justice Kenneth Clarke and the UK\u2019s ex-Attorney General Dominic Grieve. Grieve has long condemned the proposal, warning its consequences would be devastating.<\/p>\n
In December, he said the government\u2019s threat to potentially abandon the Strasbourg court undermines international law and could fray the constitutional fabric that holds the United Kingdom together. Echoing grieve, analysts warn such a withdrawal would spark a constitutional crisis in the UK.<\/p>\n
They suggest the move would be flatly rejected by Nicola Sturgeon\u2019s Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) and would mean the Conservative government has violated Northern Ireland\u2019s 1998 Good Friday Agreement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Newly appointed Justice Secretary Michael Gove will push ahead with Conservative plans to repeal the Human Rights Act \u2013 a move experts warn could spark a constitutional crisis and blight Britain\u2019s reputation on human rights worldwide. Conservative Party sources, fresh from last week\u2019s general election victory, told the Guardian the human rights reforms are imminent. … Continue reading “Tories\u2019 repeal of Human Rights Act could spark constitutional crisis”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[186,4130,1822,8660,10074,11686,70,201,11687,1945,9341,1946],"class_list":["post-18928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-britain","tag-civil-liberties","tag-conservatives","tag-constitutional-crisis","tag-council-of-europe","tag-echr","tag-eu","tag-human-rights","tag-michael-gove","tag-scotland","tag-tories","tag-uk"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18928"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18929,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18928\/revisions\/18929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}