Human rights and the trivial… – Paul Bernal’s Blog
The Conservative plan for a ‘Bill of Rights’ has been made public by David Allen Green (@JackofKent) here, writes Paul Bernal in his blog.
I’m sure there will be detailed analyses of it by people far more expert than me – but there was one particular thing in the proposals that drew my attention. The idea is to:
Limit the use of Human Rights laws to the most serious cases. They will no longer apply in trivial cases.
So what counts as trivial? Who decides what is trivial? This may seem like a trivial question, but it really isn’t, particularly when you consider the nature of human rights.
You can read the rest of this article on Mr Bernal’s site, but the conclusion is worth repeating:
It’s not a trivial question. It matters – and if the upshot of the Conservative Bill of Rights is that decisions like this are made by the government, the ‘little people’ – the people that human rights are particularly needed to protect – are likely to be given short shrift. That isn’t a trivial matter.
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This was not an unexpected announcement and has been on the cards for many years, even under Labour ( despite their implementation of the HRA) noises were made about the use of it in trials, more especially during the period of Mrs Blairs involvement in immigration / asylum cases.
There has never been in this country (until the actual HRA was introduced) any rights for the citizens, we have always been , and to my knowledge still are , “subjects” not citizens.
Citing the Magna Carta as the basis for democracy is a lie and a sham as was the 1689 Bill of Rights.
Both these acts were to bestow power from Royalty unto Parliament, they had no bearing on the treatment, trial, detention or other abuse by government upon the civilians at large save Landowners.
This is borne out by the horrendous acts committed against the people of this country including slavery, murder, transportation, sham trials, witch hunts, Peterloo massacre, and the use of state force against legitimate striking workers up to and including the miners strikes of the 80’s.
Oh yes a Bill of Rights would suit the Tories right down to the ground, like everything else taking a backward step so to would this, back to 1689 when only Landed Gentry had rights and the rest of us were mere chattels to be treated as our Lords chose.