Why the Human Rights Act must go

Following numerous absurd situations created by bizarre interpretations of the Human Rights Act, including a case in which a suspected car thief was fed chicken during a twenty hour siege, and other cases of escaped convicts whose photographs were not made public, apparently to protect their privacy, a spirited defence of the Human Rights Act has been mounted by the Lord Chancellor and Constitutional Affairs minister Lord Falconer:

"Common sense would tell you are not entitled to food if you are running away from the police. You are not entitled to not have your photograph shown if you are a convicted murderer on the run."

Unfortunately there is apparently no requirement that common sense has to be applied to the Human Rights Act. The word "fiasco" seems hardly appropriate to the case of the convicted sex attacker Anthony Rice, released on licence from a life sentence because of concerns for his human rights, who subsequently murdered Naomi Bryant, thereby denying her all of her human rights. It might be more appropriate to the case of the nine Afghan hijackers who were subsequently allowed to remain in the country.

Having given some thought to amending the Human Rights Act, the government now intends merely to alter its guidance on implementing the act. This may not help, however. The problem with the Human Rights Act is not that it fails adequately to protect public safety, but that it applies Human Rights in an entirely arbitrary fashion, depending on the case being brought. Indeed, since public bodies will make decisions in the light of their understanding of the HRA, and are likely to err on the side of caution, it is not even necessary for a case to be brought for human rights to be severely compromised. When a public body fears legal action, it may not be prepared to take the risk that its own interpretation of "common sense" will coincide with that of a court of law. With the HRA in place, therefore, almost anything can happen. Since criminals and victims are assumed to have the same human rights, it is as likely that a criminal's rights will be upheld at the expense of the victim's as the other way round.

This is why, for example, we now have a system of control orders under which a British citizen may be held under house arrest for reasons unknown even to them. This has occurred because an extraordinary situation, which the government attempted to deal with using an admittedly extraordinary solution, was deemed unlawful under the HRA. Specifically, a very small number of foreign nationals suspected of terrorism related offences, who could not be deported against their will because of a potential threat to their welfare in their home countries, were being held without trial (or even charge) in Belmarsh prison. Any one of them could have been released the same day if they had agreed to be deported. However, the Law Lords ruled this situation discriminatory because it applied only to foreign nationals (who else could it have applied to?), and in response the Government implemented a system which would allow, potentially, any British citizen to be detained without trial.

We were far better off under the old system: there is no reason why we cannot retain adherence to the European Convention on Human Rights, while still making the common sense decisions ourselves. It might not be perfect, but it's far less dangerous from the point of view of public safety, or indeed civil liberties. The Human Rights Act serves no useful purpose and has been hijacked for political ends. Not only has it fuelled the compensation culture but it has also diminished the role of parliament by requiring the courts to make judgements on political matters. The Human Rights Act should not be amended, but repealed.