THE UK Government is accused of showing a “shameful” disregard for Scotland as it moves to “ransack” human rights.
Under a Bill of Rights being tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, Tory ministers will change the law to prevent High Court judges from ruling on human rights cases.
They will also introduce measures to allow them to ignore some judgements by the European Court of Human Rights after it intervened to help stop the first Rwanda deportation flight.
Labour peer Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, a barrister and broadcaster, condemned the UK Government for disregarding the views of Scots as it introduced the legislation.
She told BBC Good Morning Scotland: “That’s what’s so shocking about all of this. No effort has been made to actually find out what the Scots feel about this.”
The QC warned that Holyrood legislation may need to be rewritten as a result of Boris Johnson’s plans.
“The European Convention is written into the Scotland Act, and it's the equivalent of the Human Rights Act,” Kennedy explained. “But of course, nobody pays any attention to what might be happening in Scotland amongst this kind of government.
“That's the shameful thing about this, is that there has been no consultation. There has been no pre-legislative scrutiny. We [the House of Lords] have asked for that.
“They [the UK Government] just want to be able to run away with this while everybody's head is down because of the economy … the shocking situation that we're in."
She argued the driving force behind the reforms was a desire on Downing Street to “extract us from all things European”.
The baroness added: “And of course, the reason why they're still saying that they're going to be in the European Convention of Human Rights is because if they weren’t they’d have to leave the Council of Europe, and that would be the last stage of our engagement of with the Western world in trying to raise standards in life and make sure that people have protections.”
Dominic Raab is introducing the proposed legislation to Parliament on Wednesday after European judges disrupted the Government’s controversial flagship policy for asylum seekers.
The Deputy Prime Minister wants the successor to the Human Rights Act to assert that British courts do not always need to follow case law from Strasbourg and that the Supreme Court in London is the ultimate decision-maker on human rights issues. And the legislation would confirm that interim measures such as the one issued over the Rwanda policy are not binding on UK courts.
Martha Spurrier, director of campaign group Libert, warned the legislation would “ransack our rights”.
She said: “Let’s be clear: this Bill is a power grab by a Government that has no respect for our rights.”
The campaigner added: “From the families of Hillsborough victims to military veterans, people use the Human Rights Act every day to stand up for their rights and get justice.
“Under the Government’s plans, it will become much harder for people – including disabled people and survivors of violence against women and girls - to access justice.”
The Bill has also been condemned by the SNP, Amnesty International, the Law Society of England and Wales and many other campaign groups.
The Scottish Human Rights Commission, an independent public body which is accountable to the Scottish Parliament, warned against the UK Government’s plans in March.
Legal and policy leader Barbara Bolton said: “The UK Government’s plan to replace the Human Rights Act with a new Bill of Rights signals an intent to water down human rights protections, erect additional barriers to accessing justice and equivocate on compliance with decisions of the European Court of Human Rights involving the UK.
“If passed, these proposals would be deeply regressive, undermining 20 years of human rights law and policy development across the UK, making it harder for people to enforce their rights and putting the UK in breach of its international obligations. This should be of grave concern to us all.”
Raab, who is also Justice Secretary, said: “The Bill of Rights will strengthen our UK tradition of freedom whilst injecting a healthy dose of common sense into the system.
“These reforms will reinforce freedom of speech, enable us to deport more foreign offenders and better protect the public from dangerous criminals.”
