Human Rights and Civil Liberties — House of Lords, 2015-07-02
Topic: Civil Rights
Anthony Lester (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow three such powerful speeches. I cannot match the eloquence of the speech just now from the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, but I hope that it will be read by members of his party and indeed of all parties and none after this debate. It is a pleasure to speak in the presence of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, since it is he, more than any other Minister in the Labour Government, who takes credit for the Human Rights Act. I am very glad that he is here No law can save our human rights unless there is a culture of liberty that is deep-rooted and popular. Law is not a panacea. It has to enjoy public confidence and to be respected by Ministers in what they do as well as what they say. The Human Rights Act requires Ministers to state whether they believe a government Bill to be compatible with rights protected by the convention. It requires all three branches of government—Parliament and the Executive as well as the judiciary—to act compatibly with the convention rights. It preserves parliamentary sovereignty. Our courts may declare legislation to be incompatible with the convention, but may not strike it down. The Human Rights Act leaves it to the Executive and Parliament to choose whether and how to comply with a declaration of incompatibility, or to leave the claimant to seek redress in Strasbourg The Act requires our courts to have regard to Strasbourg judgments, but not to be bound by them. Our Supreme Court has been robust in recent years in subjecting Strasbourg reasoning to critical scrutiny, and explaining where it begs to differ. A valuable dialogue now takes place, and the judgments of our courts are influential in Strasbourg Today the main threats come from a Government of zealots. If they succeed in doing what they threaten to do, their legacy will be to have weakened the protection of human rights and undermined the culture of liberty. The newly elected Government, unrestrained by their former coalition partner, threaten to tear up the Human Rights Act and replace it with a weaker British Bill of Rights that may not be anchored in the convention. They also threaten to ignore judgments of the Strasbourg court with which they disagree, undermining the rule of law here and across Europe The new Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, Michael Gove, is in charge of human rights policy. His predecessor, Chris Grayling, and the Home Secretary, Theresa May, are hostile to the Human Rights Act and to the Strasbourg court. So is Michael Gove’s junior Minister Dominic Raab, as he showed in replying to the Westminster Hall debate on Tuesday. On 23 June, Dominic Raab told the Commons that the Government’s, "plans do not involve us leaving the convention", but he added that, "our No. 1 priority is to restore some balance to our human rights laws, so no option is off the table".—[Official Report, Commons, 23/6/15; col. 748.] On Tuesday, he again told the Commons the same thing. I ask the Minister to explain quite unequivocally whether leaving the convention is or is not on the table as a possibility Were we to replace the Human Rights Act with something weaker and no longer anchored in the convention, that would be used by Europe’s pseudo-democracies in the former Soviet empire to justify flouting European human rights law. As the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, said in his powerful speech, it is dispiriting that a great political party that played an inspiring role under Churchill in creating the European convention system should be led by Europhobes who would weaken the effective protection of human rights by the European Court of Human Rights and even by our own courts I say that the Government are zealots because they know that they are right and are not interested in genuinely open dialogue with those who disagree. When the Prime Minister decided not to rush to introduce a Bill while striving to renegotiate the UK’s membership of the EU, I wrote to Mr Gove welcoming the decision and asked him to meet to discuss the issues. I received no reply, not even a formal acknowledgement by his private office. Mr Gove has issued guidance to his civil servants on the importance of writing grammatically in their correspondence. Further guidance is needed from the Prime Minister on the need for good ministerial manners Mr Gove told the Commons on 28 May that, because the Official Opposition and the SNP oppose the Government’s plans, they, "have already ruled themselves out of the debate on reform that we need to have".—[Official Report, Commons, 28/5/15; col. 292.] That no doubt includes Liberal Democrats, because we strongly oppose the manifesto threats. Then, on 23 June, Dominic Raab told the Commons that the Government intend to consult, "fully, including with the devolved Administrations, in due course".—[Official Report, Commons, 23/6/15; col. 748.] I hope the Minister will explain in his reply how he squares that with Michael Gove’s statement. Can he tell us the discussion that Michael Gove had with the Justice Minister in the Scottish Government last week, and whether it included the Government’s human rights plans I served as a member of the Commission on a Bill of Rights that reported in 2012. The Minister was a fellow commissioner. You had to be a masochist to serve on that commission. He wrote a separate paper with another Conservative commissioner, Jonathan Fisher QC, in which they attacked the Strasbourg court for what they regard as undue judicial activism and suggested that the cause of human rights would be better served by withdrawal from the convention so as to free it from the strictures of the court Their approach was embodied in the Conservative election manifesto. Before those pledges were made, the Prime Minister removed Dominic Grieve as Attorney-General, who explained in the debate this week that the Human Rights Act has conferred, "huge benefits on this country".—[Official Report, Commons, 30/6/15; col. 410WH.] The former Solicitor-General, Sir Edward Garnier, said in the same debate that, "the political reality is that there is no majority in this House"— that is, the other place— "and there certainly is not in", the House of Lords, "for a repeal of the Human Rights Act—still less for our removal from the European convention".—[Official Report, Commons, 30/6/15; col. 418WH.] Dominic Raab is concerned that what he calls "rights inflation" has diluted personal responsibility. The only example he gives is of a claim that failed, and he complains that the Human Rights Act has exposed us unnecessarily to too much "judicial legislation", as he puts it, in Strasbourg and at home. These criticisms are not, in my view, fair or reasonable This Government threaten not only our culture of liberty and respect for the European rule of law but the unity of the UK. However much the Government say they will consult the public, they are guilty of at least the appearance of prejudgment and a lack of interest in seeking a consensus on what are major constitutional issues. If the Government go ahead with their plan to tear up the Human Rights Act and flout judgments from Strasbourg with which they disagree, they will face deep hostility in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales and, I dare say, much of England, too. The public will not welcome a weakening of the legal protection of their fundamental rights, and the unity of the nations will be undermined If Michael Gove was serious about a one-nation justice policy, he would not adopt the policy that he now seems to be pursuing. There is a crisis in what is a two-nation civil and criminal justice system. What use is the rhetoric of a UK Bill of Rights if only the wealthy and the powerful can enforce those rights in our courts?