An update on what’s happening with the Human Rights Act

Date: 8th July 2022
Category: Other human rights treaties and mechanisms

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The UK Government has announced a new Bill that seeks to remove rights and roll back many provisions within the Human Rights Act. Amongst our members and wider civil society, we have expressed serious concerns over the impact of this #RightsRemovalBill. We continue to identify the necessity of the Human Rights Act with the UK Government.

We joined 29 other children’s charities, writing to Justice Secretary Dominic Raab urging the UK Government to scrap its plans to replace the Human Rights Act.

Alongside Children’s Rights Alliance for England, part of Just for Kids Law, Children in Wales and the Children's Law Centre, we wrote to the Commissioner for Human Rights. We call on on the Commissioner to raise our concerns about the detrimental impact these proposals will have on children with the UK Government during the Commissioner's visit and urge them to reconsider. 

We joined over 120 organisations across Scotland urging the UK Government to reconsider this Bill and, instead, consider what can be done to better protect human rights for all in Scotland, and across the UK.

What are the changes the UK Government has proposed?

• UK courts to disregard judgments and interim rulings by the European Court of Human Rights and the body that supervises compliance with its judgments;
• New procedural hurdles for people seeking to assert rights in court;
• To distinguish people ‘deserving’ of their human rights protections based on their conduct;
• Reduce public bodies’ human rights obligations and limit the application of human rights law overseas.

Not only are these changes extremely concerning, the UK Government has asserted that it plans to bypass full pre-legislative scrutiny by UK Parliament. This goes against the warnings of four Parliamentary committee chairs and ignores the need for full Parliamentary scrutiny  across party lines.

• Read our briefings on the Bill of Rights here.
• Read our consultation response to reforming the Human Rights Act here.
• Read the proposed Bill of Rights here.
• Read our letter to Dominic Raab, calling on the Bill of Rights being subject to pre-legislative scrutiny.