‘Increasing acceptance’ in Britain for reworked ECHR
Former British Lord Chancellor and Labour Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw has said that Britain does not need to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) “the better to deal with the unacceptable number of unlawful and unfounded asylum seekers”.
He said that, rather, Britain should de-couple its own human-rights legislation from the convention (as other European countries have done).
The debate about Britain’s future relationship with the ECHR, and its parent body, the Council of Europe, should be conducted on its merits, the former Home Secretary added.
Assumption
The comments came after right-of-centre think-tank Policy Exchange said (1 September) that the frequently cited assumption that withdrawal would imperil the Good Friday Agreement was , and that nothing in commitments to the North required Britain to remain a part of the ECHR.
In his foreword to the document, Lord Alton says that “membership of the ECHR isn’t a condition of the British-Irish Agreement, although it is sometimes said that it is”.
However, he added that he remained concerned that withdrawal would risk undermining the relationships on which the agreement rested.
“Right across Europe – and from across the political spectrum – there is an increasing acceptance that there is scope for a reworking and rebalancing of the ECHR,” he said.
Lord Faulks KC, former Minister of Justice and Chair of the Independent Review of Administrative Law, said in the document that leaving the ECHR was a necessary if not sufficient part of preventing illegal migration.
“It would also follow that we should repeal the , which incorporates the convention into our law.
“My own view is that we do not need a British Bill of Rights to replace the 1998 act. If we need to legislate to provide further protection for, by way of example, free speech, then this should be provided for by bespoke legislation.
“A British Bill of Rights, expressed in generalities, much like the Human Rights Act, would be a recipe for uncertainty and would mean that judges define the shape and extent of any ‘rights’ included in the legislation,” Lord Faulks said in his foreword.
According to the Policy Exchange report, only one of the two agreements making up the Good Friday Agreement refers to the ECHR, but these references all concern the domestic law in the North, and the need to provide assurances to the different parties that they will be secure from abuse of devolved power.
Such assurances could be provided for in several ways after British withdrawal from the ECHR, such as by maintaining the Human Rights Act and the Northern Ireland Act in relation to the political institutions of the North, the document argues.
Distorted
One of the report's authors, Professor Richard Ekins, said: “Public debate about human-rights law reform has been distorted by the repeated assertion that withdrawal from the ECHR would breach the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement.
“In fact, neither the letter nor the spirit of the Belfast Agreement in any way requires Britain – or Ireland – to remain within the ECHR. And the agreements reached with the EU after Brexit confirm the point, leaving it open to Britain to choose to leave the ECHR.”
Lord Faulks added: “It seems, in the current climate, that a political party that refuses to leave the ECHR or concludes that it is ‘too difficult’, is unlikely to gain the support of the electorate at the next election.”