Constitutional law experts have expressed doubt that a Bill of Rights will ever be introduced.
Liz Truss, the Lord Chancellor, has said she will replace the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA 1998) with a Bill of Rights, as promised in the Conservative manifesto. A draft Bill was drawn up under her predecessor, Michael Gove.
However, Professor Michael Zander QC remains sceptical. Withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) or “any watering down of the rights available under the ECHR, would be fiercely opposed not only by Labour, Liberal Democrat and Scottish and Welsh MPs but by the Dominic Grieve faction in the Conservative Party,” he says. “[The Prime Minister] may decide that this is a battle she does not need.”
NLJ columnist Geoffrey Bindman QC says: “We already have a Bill of Rights. It is ECHR as embodied in HRA 1998.
“Bills of Rights elsewhere, such as the USA, where it forms part of the Constitution, override all other laws, giving the judges power to invalidate inconsistent legislation. HRA 1998 does not have that superiority but a ‘declaration of incompatibility’ provides a simplified parliamentary procedure for bringing other laws into line with it. It is unlikely that a UK parliament would choose to cede sovereignty to the judges. The HRA 1998 model seems the right one for Britain.”
On existing human rights case law if the government did proceed with its plans, Neil Parpworth, De Montfort University, says: “I would have thought it likely that if the new Bill of Rights sought to protect essentially the same rights as those protected under ECHR (and therefore HRA 1998), the body of human rights jurisprudence which has arisen under the Act will have an ongoing relevance and importance.
“In other words, the scope and extent of substantive rights is not likely to change very much in the eyes of the judges unless, that is, the new Bill were to provide for additional limits or qualifications which do not currently exist.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson says: “We will set out our proposals for a Bill of Rights in due course. We will consult fully on our proposals.”
