The Human Rights Act needs to be protected
JVL Introduction
In a short and sharp critique, Geoffrey Bindman challenges the Tory project of reforming the Human Rights Act.
Dominic Raab has cavalierly rejected the Independent Human Rights Act Review which was published in December, in favour of pursuing the government’s ideologically driven plan to replace the HRA.
It is not, demonstrates Bindman, the product of any need to reform weaknesses in the law. It arises, rather, from an increasingly isolationist mindset – at a time when the challenges we face demand quite the opposite: maximal commitment to international coordination and jurisdiction.
Our thanks for permission to republish.
This article was originally published by New Law Journal on Fri 21 Jan 2022. Read the original here.
Raab and Human Rights: moving in the wrong direction?
It is time for the UK government to stop looking inward & restore its place as a global human rights champion, says Geoffrey Bindman
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Sir Bindman the UK gov must “restore its place as a human rights champion”. I must have missed something out! When, throughout its history has the UK ever been a human rights champion? From the Irish famine to the misery and squalor of Victorian Britain, the British have been the foremost “champions” of the ugly and exploitative nature of capitalism. Who did America learn so well from?
‘The Masters make the rules, for the wise man & the fools’………..was ever thus.; aka ‘the class struggle’.
Sir Geoffrey Bindman’s critique is useful.
It reminds us to reflect on the inequality of application of human rights law.
Human rights for the poor and disadvantaged appears to be very different from human rights for the rich and privileged.
Human rights are much easier defended when those seeking justice have deep pockets.
We, on the left, should have learned that lesson well.
“Maxwell Fyfe was greatly moved by his experience when, as attorney-general, he prosecuted at Nuremberg. It shaped his influential commitment to legally enforceable human rights which he pursued until the end of his life.”
However:
“During his tenure as Home Secretary, he was embroiled in the controversy surrounding the hanging of Derek Bentley.[3] Maxwell Fyfe had controversially refused to grant a reprieve to Bentley despite the written petitions of 200 MPs and the claim that Bentley was mentally retarded allegedly having a mental age of only 11.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Maxwell_Fyfe,_1st_Earl_of_Kilmuir