The Human Rights Act Protects the Innocent

Meanwhile, in the day’s other Supreme Court judgement, the justices struck down the government’s ban on non-EU spouses under the age of 21 coming to live in Britain. This legislation was, it should be noted, well-intentioned and aimed to make it harder to arrange forced marriages in this country. So far so admirable. But, as is so often the case, the law cheerfully entrapped the innocent as well as the guilty.

And so, as is so often the case, there’s a balance. Mitigating against forced marriages is a worthy endeavour and one that Lord Brown, dissenting, suggested should be given greater priority:

The extent to which the rule will help combat forced marriage and the countervailing extent to which it will disrupt the lives of innocent couples adversely affected by it is largely a matter of judgement. Unless demonstrably wrong, this judgement should be rather for government than for the courts.”