Zander: Hands off the Human Rights Act

Michael Zander QC, Emeritus Professor at the LSE, writing in this week’s NLJ, questions the government’s plan to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights. The proposal is to put the European Convention into primary legislation but limit the use of the new law to cases that involve criminal law and the liberty of an individual, the right to property and other serious matters. Zander lists the basic rights that would be excluded, and notes a range of other problems with the plans, for example, the feasibility of restricting access when any Bill of Rights must be available to everyone within the jurisdiction, or deciding which matters are too trivial for the Bill to apply.