The government’s bill of rights, which is due to receive its second reading in parliament on 12 September, has been sold as a mechanism to reduce “risks to the public from convicted criminals”. To support this, Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, has stated that the Human Rights Act, which the bill aims to replace, has led to the failure to deport dangerous foreign prisoners and helped murderers and serial rapists argue that they should be released.
When Raab was challenged in parliament that “it was the Human Rights Act (HRA) that enabled the victims of black-cab rapist John Worboys to challenge the police failure to investigate his appalling crimes”, he answered that “it was not as the result of litigation that addressed the problems with the Worboys case”.
