Why Britain should scrap the Human Rights Act

Will the scrapping of the Human Rights Act make Britain a pariah in Europe? When the Human Rights Act was passed in 1998, it was presented as a moment of great liberal modernization that was to take Britain closer to liberal democracies on the continent.

Yet, the European experience was quite different. In Germany, France, Spain or Italy, if you bring a human rights case, you do so mainly by reference to the distinctive bill of rights contained in each of those countries’ constitutions. The Norwegians, who also reviewed their human rights legislation recently, were clear on one thing: their Supreme Court had to continue to decide human rights cases under their own bill of rights rather than the European Convention or any other international agreement. Not so with the Human Rights Act in Britain.

Of all places, the country which – as Alexander Herzen put it – ‘invented liberty’ decided to codify its human rights laws for the first time in 300 years by directly incorporating the European Convention, and then instructing the judges basically to follow the ECHR precedents.