Watching the BBC's "Sunday Morning Live" today and the first discussion was with regard to the Human Rights Act, with the question being raised, is the act being used to unbalance the British legal system, and if it is, should we withdraw from it and come up with our own National bill of rights? The discussion was not particularly good being twisted to the point of incomprehensibility by one panel member with a purely anti-european slant, as one would expect from this particular panelist, but the question is non the less an interesting one. The act was put in place in 1998 to enshrine in law the rights to protection from state or personal infringement of civil liberties. It protects against torture, violence, mis-carriages of justice and the like, and in so do is tremendously important, particularly in a society which has lost faith in the criminal justice system. But in so doing it also allows for those who chose to break the law to invoke the act to reduce or in some cases remove punishment for criminal acts.
I think the point that was not raised but perhaps should have been is that as is so often the case, it is not the legislation itself that is at fault, but the way in which it is interpreted. The act can be twisted and made to present some highly questionable decisions, and here we have a major problem as a sovereign nation. This act is European, although it was primarily written by British lawyers, and based around the British legal system, and as such, interpretation and what can be suggested as mis-interpretation is difficult to address on a national level. Given that this is the problem, perhgaps the discussion should have focused on how we can better manage the legislation and how we can ensure at the national level how we can modify and improve the act to better serve its intended purpose.
By using European legislation in British courts we risk losing some of the national freedoms that we should be focused upon. As a nation we already had an effective human rights legislation in place before this 1998 act and we had the freedom as a nation to adapt and change and improve it, a freedom that doesn't exist when that legislation is not nation based. I struggle with the concept of agreeing with a BBC TV panel in any way, but in this case, the concept of a nation state being unable to directly change legislation that is subject to mis-use is absolute anathema. There is no doubt that we need human rights legislation, but it must be centred on the individual nation and modified by the process of legal presidence as has been the case in the UK since 1215 and Magna Carta.....
I think the point that was not raised but perhaps should have been is that as is so often the case, it is not the legislation itself that is at fault, but the way in which it is interpreted. The act can be twisted and made to present some highly questionable decisions, and here we have a major problem as a sovereign nation. This act is European, although it was primarily written by British lawyers, and based around the British legal system, and as such, interpretation and what can be suggested as mis-interpretation is difficult to address on a national level. Given that this is the problem, perhgaps the discussion should have focused on how we can better manage the legislation and how we can ensure at the national level how we can modify and improve the act to better serve its intended purpose.
By using European legislation in British courts we risk losing some of the national freedoms that we should be focused upon. As a nation we already had an effective human rights legislation in place before this 1998 act and we had the freedom as a nation to adapt and change and improve it, a freedom that doesn't exist when that legislation is not nation based. I struggle with the concept of agreeing with a BBC TV panel in any way, but in this case, the concept of a nation state being unable to directly change legislation that is subject to mis-use is absolute anathema. There is no doubt that we need human rights legislation, but it must be centred on the individual nation and modified by the process of legal presidence as has been the case in the UK since 1215 and Magna Carta.....
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