Human Rights Act Reform: this is our submission to this supposed consultation on attempts to stymie the individual rights of us all even further. As a small independent we have documented so many times how UK needed to respect individual human rights more, and failed to do so.
Ignoring the principles already enshrined in law, whilst bringing in rafts of new legislation supposedly to deal with problems that already have solutions if only they were used, is a transparent act of puppetry.
This is self-evidently a naked attempt to set the machinery of the state against individuals who hold points of view that the Government wishes to frame as the ‘public good’. In this we can include all science, as the Government policy is to push pseudo-science as fast as possible and hope nobody notices the bodies piling up. If they do they will be smeared, cancelled, abused etc., all spiritual guidance, as churches are colluding against their faith, just as politicians and doctors are against their oath and so called journalists are against their code of telling the truth.
This is the background to and reveals the purpose of your proposals. Nobody is fooled, but very many people are scared. Bullying has that effect.
We will be publishing the submission below which you have have already received and which was forwarded to us.
This letter shows exactly how you are lying about your Bill of Rights shtick and how redolent your actions are of unspeakable horrors, as you must know full well:
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I am writing today about the Human Rights Act Reform proposal because I am appalled at the contents. How anyone with any knowledge of the holocaust and how human rights were eroded in nazi Germany order to ‘protect society from dangerous contact with “disease ridden” Jewish people’ could support these evil proposals speaks volumes regarding their motivation. Look at history, Look at how such proposals have been used in the past.
Making the government the highest authority with no ultimate protection for the individual is terrifying. I am terrified. The people behind these proposals are evil and it is time to take a logical and rational look at their agenda.
A totalitarian state where government can decide to impose whatever it chooses “ in the interest of the greater good” is the stuff of nightmares. Stripping the judiciary of their ability to protect groups or individuals is a step so staggering that it’s only place is in dystopian science fiction.
When I had cancer I chose to treat it with a medicine which was then seen as scandalous nonsense and years later is now widely accepted by the medical community. It was my choice, my risk. The doctor who prescribed it was taken to court and they tried to get her struck off for something that is now normal. She was accused of spreading dangerous misinformation which would endanger society. Luckily she had the science to back up her recommendations. My family have contributed enormously to modern medicine and scientific understanding but if they hadn’t escaped from the kind of state you are proposing all that knowledge might never have been known. This would have cost thousands of lives. Will we have to escape again? If this is passed then yes, we probably will.
We want to start by stating that we believe that this reform proposal is entirely unacceptable and do not support it in any way. We stand and have stood for Human Rights and will continue to do so even if the Government tries to take them away through this reform.
The Government should be doing more to uphold our Human Rights and instead we find these proposals weaken and dilute them, which is why we cannot and will not support these proposals.
We note that none of the devolved nations have been involved in the construction of this proposed reform and are in fact opposed to it.
Wales has thankfully issued a statement in which they also reference a letter to the Lord Chancellor Dominic Raab MP, from the Deputy First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney MSP setting out the Scottish Government’s objections too.
Furthermore in the Welsh statement they reference their own 165 page research paper on the implementation of Human Rights in Wales. The conclusion of that extensive study was that while the Human Rights Act itself is strong and appropriate it needs to be applied more thoroughly so that people’s lived experience reflects it. The conclusion was not to water it down and to take away more individual rights but in actual fact enhance it more.
For the purposes of the Consultation, we will detail the seven most pressing concerns contained within the Governments document, this however, ought not to be taken as an endorsement of any other part of the document, of which we am entirely opposed.
Our first concerns about the Human Rights Act Reform are about how it will impact the individual. There are four main issues to address which are that:
• The proposal of a permission stage will be prohibitive.
• The scope of positive obligations will be diminished.
• Society could be given more rights than the individual.
• An individual’s right to rights could be judged by the court.
The proposal of a permission stage will be prohibitive.
In the reform proposal it proposes that there ought to be a permission stage when an individual wants to bring a Human Rights case before the court. This would ‘require claimants to demonstrate that they have suffered a significant disadvantage before a human rights claim can be heard in court.’ This will have a huge impact upon the number of claimants who are able to bring their case before the courts.
Our belief is that our human rights need more protection, not less and bringing in this extra procedural stage with such a high, and undefined, threshold, at the initial stage, before it is even heard in court, means that many human rights abuse cases will go unheard. We do not believe that this can be considered acceptable.
We note the Government has used the same language as European Court of Human Rights protocol 14 but that is a European Court, facing a tremendous backlog. As the domestic courts are not facing a backlog and each case referred to the courts will have been committed here in the UK it ought to be of the highest priority to the UK courts. We also fail to see that it is in any way comparable to the German Federal Constitutional Court which the Government makes reference to.
We want more protection for individuals, not less, therefore while we stand against the whole notion of this reform I would be particularly concerned about the introduction of a permission stage and believe it would lessen the amount our human rights were upheld.
There are many people in this nation who are in state run institutions from hospitals, to care homes, to prisons, to refuges. It has long been established that the state cannot absolve itself of its Human Rights obligations by doing nothing.
If the state does nothing and an individual’s rights are infringed upon and/or abused then the State is responsible, We believe this is rightly so. It is the Government’s obligation to uphold every citizen’s Human Rights.
Yet this proposed reform seeks to pass the buck and put the emphasis on personal responsibility. While we support the notion that we are all responsible for our own conduct, that does not mean the State can ignore Human Rights atrocities happening on its own soil, in its own institutions.
This impact will be felt predominantly by our most vulnerable in society; those with care needs, children in care homes, and so on. ANM stands with them and their rights, they need proactive support. When this is coupled with the previous point which would prevent many of these cases even reaching court it would open up a huge risk of human rights abuses of our most vulnerable.
This, therefore, is another reason that we cannot support these proposals due to the reduction in accountability and increase in risk that it would cause.
We see the Government make mention of ‘wider public interest’ and ‘broader needs of society’ and say that each individual’s needs ought to be balanced against them. Now while of course we all have a duty to conduct ourselves that doesn’t injure or harm another these definitions are very wide and open to any number of interpretations.
With such wide terms anything that the Government decides could be defined as such would therefore be permissible in legislation. This is a very alarming prospect. For example it could be argued that it is in the broader needs of society for there to be no alcohol as pub brawls and alcoholism are not desirable.
Not only are these proposals concerning, upon their own merits, the tone of the Government’s commentary on the matter communicates a distinct disdain for what it calls a ‘rights culture’. Which we can only imagine is, by its definition, when an everyday citizen stands up and demands their Human Rights are respected and officials are held accountable.
We am wholly in favour of an individual being able to do so and we believe it is necessary, as we have lived in a nation that does not uphold Human Rights fully, for far too long. Individual’s needs ought not to be interfered with for such low and vague criteria and we would not welcome this becoming normalised in our society.
An individual’s rights ought to be cherished and upheld at all times by doing that it will be of the most benefit to the ‘wider public interest’.
Now further to the point above, the Government’s disdain continues to be evident when it discusses the rights of people whose behaviour it has taken a dislike to.
It states ‘a Bill of Rights could require the courts to give greater consideration to the behaviour of claimants’. Again we believe in an individual’s Human Rights and we would not be willing for that to be deemed unnecessary due to past transgressions.
There are no definitions of what ‘behaviour’ would render an individual not worthy of their Human Rights, again this leaves it wide open for interpretation. Would a missed council tax payment from 15 years prior count? Or discussing a dislike of the Government on Social Media? This is yet again another very alarming prospect.
Even when an individual has committed a crime that requires a prison sentence, which is clearly an interference with their Human Rights as it is, that does not mean that all their other rights can or ought to then be disregarded.
The Government’s proposal is essentially stating that you have to earn the right to your rights.
This is is not compatible with anything called a ‘democracy’, therefore this is another part of this reform proposal that I vehemently disagree with.
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Further to the matters outlined above that affect the individual, there are many parts of the reform that will affect the checks and balances at a Parliamentary and judicial level that we rely upon to uphold our human rights. The three main issues of concern:
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Judicial amendments will not be allowed unless in line with the will of Parliament.
We are a nation that prides itself on a common law history and we rely heavily upon case law to govern the nation. This has allowed judges to interpret the law and apply it to real world cases and to make judgements without the influence of party politics.
This has been an essential part of the checks and balances that we rely on in this country to protect us from ill-thought out legislation and undue influence from outside sources.
However under these proposals the Government will be able to be more prescriptive to the courts giving it explicit guidance that it must follow rather than allowing the judge to make interpretations and judgements, essentially preventing a judge from doing their job.
The courts and judges will have to abide by the will of Parliament. Therefore Parliament will rule all, including the judges and the courts. There will no longer be any separation of power.
Honest Governments do not give themselves such unnecessary powers of over-reach and it could have devastating effects in the future as this would apply to all future Governments.
Statutory Instruments should not be used to make any significant legislation due to the fact they do not have full consideration of the Houses in the same way that Primary Legislation does. Furthermore they can be enacted and become law before the House is given any time to debate the matter, if any is even given.
This means Secretaries of State hold an enormous amount of power as we saw with Matt Hancock and the Health Regulations 2020.
The proposals would prevent courts from being able to overturn any Statutory Instruments that do not uphold people’s Human Rights. This is highly concerning as it means legislation could be passed, quickly and knowingly not in line with Human Rights and there would be no mechanisms to overturn it.
Since 2014 only 14 Statutory Instruments have been overturned but where Statutory Instruments do not have full consideration of the House, and often do not have impact assessments conducted prior to enactment, it is absolutely essential that there is some method to challenge this legislation.
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Currently all legislation passed is underpinned by the Human Rights Act 1998. This means where explicit instructions are not contained within the legislation to protect Human Rights these are implied by the underpinning of the HRA.
The most recent example of this is the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Act. Many members of both Houses fought to have amendments added to the Bill that would have expressly prohibited the use of torture and committing crimes such as rape and murder. However the Government insisted that it was unnecessary to add them to the Bill as the HRA prohibits them and would underpin the Act.
However if the Government does away with the Human Rights Act and instead replaces it with a Bill of Rights which states that an individuals rights can be overridden for ‘broader needs of society’ or if the investigated persons behaviour is considered lesser than, does that mean a covert human intelligence source can use torture to garner information from them?
The Government gives no consideration or assurances on how it plans to deal with this matter and this means that much legislation could be left with gaping holes in it leading to even more Human Rights abuses with no recourse available to the individual.
Each of the above points is abhorrent on an individual basis but all together they combine to make a chilling proposition which informed people will easily realise is not in their interest.
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There was a lot of evidence gathered by the Independent Human Rights Review in advance of the preparation of the Governments reform proposals and the Government has seemingly ignored the majority of it. The evidence affirmed the positive benefits of the Human Rights Act and highlighted, not only the concerns for the people of this nation, but also the potential negative impact around the world if the UK is seen to be regressing in the area of fundamental human rights.
This reform must not go ahead and given the real dangers to individuals, those pushing it should be viewed with suspicion.
Yours sincerely,
Amazon News Media
Independent
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NB we have used some technical points made by Save Our Rights UK, due to their accuracy, but it is edited and so cannot be seen as their views. This email is, including SOR edited points, as well as the quoted text above, representing the point of view of Amazon News Media – Independent.
or you can send an email to : HRAreform@justice.gov.uk
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