Solicitors reject Tory calls to leave ECHR
The Law Society of England and Wales has strongly rejected calls from Britain’s Conversative Party for the country to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The England and Wales Law Society Gazette said that the response came after party leader Kemi Badenoch announced that a future Conservative government would withdraw from the convention.
“The Conservative Party is putting political interest above the public good,” society president Richard Atkinson said.
Review
Badenoch, on the eve of her party conference, announced the findings of a review by shadow attorney general Lord Wolfson.
Wolfson's review concluded: “My overall view and advice is that should you wish to take the decision that it be Conservative Party policy that the UK should withdraw from the ECHR, such a policy would be perfectly possible both legally and practically.”
Responding, Atkinson said: “Human-rights law does one thing above all else: it puts people first.
Backstop
“Without the backstop of the ECHR, governments of whatever party will be able to erode our rights with no come-back.
“It is not just about immigration. From keeping elderly couples together in care homes, to getting justice for the victims of the black-cab rapist John Worboys and fighting for the truth about the Hillsborough disaster, the rights in the ECHR have served us time and again,” Atkinson stated.
“It is striking that the Conservative Party, the voice of the small state and individual liberties, would want to take away these protections that serve us all,” he said, adding that Britain could tighten border controls without stripping the British public of their rights under the ECHR.
Courts ‘holding country back’
The Gazette reported today (6 October) that the Conservative Party’s shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick backed the pledge to leave the ECHR at a fringe event at the conference in Manchester.
According to the Gazette, Jenrick also issued a multi-pronged attack on various aspects of the legal system he perceived to be holding the country back.
Attacking the number of judicial reviews, he said: “We need to get the courts out of the way of some of these decisions.”