In 1998 the Blair government introduced a piece of legislation which was supposed to revolutionise human rights in this country; gone would be the days when ill-defined and ill-ordered laws and conventions protected the citizen, now was a bright new dawn when nobody would ever suffer state or corporate oppression again. Ten years on, I believe that this ‘Convention on Human Rights’ has failed to do what it was supposed to do, apart from make a few lawyers even richer. Typically, those attacking the Human Rights Act (HRA) would now launch into a rant about how all it does is protect murderers from being identified, or jailed rapists who want to keep their lottery winnings, or terrorists from being deported. While this might be a valid argument, the real question is whether or not the HRA has protected the rights of the citizen. In a word, no.
Britain currently has the longest pre-charge detention period in the world, at 28 days, which was brought in after the HRA was introduced. Nor did the HRA protect us when the Blair government tried to introduce a 90 day limit, and it won’t protect us when Gordon Brown attempts to raise the limit to 42 days. Britain has been complicit in America’s policy of extraordinary rendition, allowing them to use British territory to transport suspects to CIA facilities.
Peaceful protestors have been harassed and threatened with arrest, especially under the catch-all clause of ‘anti-terrorism’, even if their protest has nothing at all to do with terrorism and is not the slightest bit violent. Police have to give a good reason for stopping and searching someone, unless they are stopped and searched under section 44 of the Terrorism Act (introduced after the HRA).
The HRA supposedly enshrines the right to privacy. Britons are now the most spied-upon people in the world. CCTV cameras dot every street, and it is estimated that the average Briton is photographed by CCTV cameras dozens of times a day. People now have the right to know who their father is, so the privacy of sperm donors is no longer protected. Dozens of types of officials can now legally gain entry into your home. Governments can seize your property and leave you with minimal compensation if they so desire.
Both central and local governments seem to spending most of their waking hours trying to build up databases on us, which can be legally accessed by hundreds of thousands of government officials, not forgetting the hackers. Police keep DNA even from suspects who have been found innocent. Increasingly, forms contain questions of sexual orientation, religion and suchlike, even though it is none of the state’s business. One council was founded to have used anti-terror legislation to spy on a family whom they thought had lied about their address in order to get their child into a good state school (they hadn’t). ID cards will not be stopped by the HRA.
As for free speech, ha! Now the government is planning to criminalise large swathes of consensual pornography, after introduced a religious hatred bill, which is likely to turn out to be a lawyers’ playground.
Before the HRA was introduced, Britain was not some idyllic paradise. Nor would abolishing it solve all the problems in a stroke. What we need to protect our rights are carefully-drafted laws which relate to individual issues, and offer concrete guarantees rather than some vague commitment to ideals which the state always bypasses anyway.
