A new Bill of Rights is not needed, says Geoffrey Bindman QC
The Commission on a Bill of Rights has just produced its final report which reflects the confused aims and political manoeuvres which motivated its creation. Though it contains some interesting analysis and could be useful should a Bill of Rights be seriously contemplated, that prospect is not advanced by the report, which reaches no clear conclusion. Though a majority of the members say they favour a British Bill of Rights, they do not find any serious flaw in the protection of human rights already provided by the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA 1998). Their only substantial reason is a cosmetic one: a home-grown product would give the public a sense of “ownership”. They supply no draft of a Bill of Rights or any attempt to describe its content. All the members accept that it would be premature to pursue the idea until after the Scottish referendum in 2014.
The commission was launched by the government in March 2011 “to investigate
