Justice Secretary Dominic Raab introduced the Bill in Parliament this week. It introduces a permission stage where potential claimants will first have to persuade a court they have suffered a ‘significant disadvantage’. Courts awarding damages for human rights breaches will be required to consider the claimant’s conduct, such as violent or criminal behaviour.
The Bill states that European Court of Human Rights case law does not need to be followed by UK courts, and asserts that the UK Supreme Court has the ultimate say on human rights issues.
However, Sophie Kemp, partner at Kingsley Napley, said: ‘Calling Dominic Raab's proposals a “Bill of Rights” is another Orwellian turn from this government. It is, in fact, a worrying “Bill of Restrictions”.
‘This will certainly reduce the scope for legal challenges against the government but is a retrograde step for people in our society.’
The Bill also sets out that, under future immigration laws, a foreign national convicted of a crime will not be able to escape deportation on the grounds of family rights unless they can prove that ‘a child or dependent would come to overwhelming, unavoidable harm’.
It will prevent courts placing obligations on public authorities to ‘actively protect someone’s human rights and limit the circumstances in which current obligations apply’.
Raab also confirmed interim measures from the European Court of Human Rights under Rule 39, such as the one issued last week which prevented the removal flight to Rwanda, would not be binding on UK courts.
Law Society president I Stephanie Boyce said: ‘The bill will create an acceptable class of human rights abuses in the UK―by introducing a bar on claims deemed not to cause “significant disadvantage”.
‘It is a lurch backwards for British justice. Authorities may begin to consider some rights violations as acceptable, because these could no longer be challenged under the Bill of Rights despite being against the law.
‘Overall, the bill would grant the state greater unfettered power over the people, power which would then belong to all future governments, whatever their ideologies.’
