- Conference
- 2022 National Disabled Members' Conference
- Date
- 8 July 2022
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference notes that the Conservative government has declared their intention to replace the Human Rights Act 1998 with a new Bill of Rights which they introduced to parliament on 22nd June 2022.
The Bill of Rights would repeal the Human Rights Act (HRA), which directly incorporated into domestic British law rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The convention rights incorporated into UK law through the HRA were ratified by 46 member states (including the UK) of the Council of Europe, the leading European human rights organisation. This set of rights was developed during the second world war to ensure governments could never again abuse individuals’ rights.
Disabled people and LGBT+ people rely on the Human Rights Act and the Convention Articles to protect hard won rights. Many disabled people have only been able to enforce their rights to independent living, to accessible public services and to a private life by taking legal action using the Human Rights Act. If the Act is repealed this avenue will no longer be open to us.
Article 14 states: “the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such a sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.” The courts have interpreted “other status” to prohibit discrimination on the grounds of disability, sexual orientation, transgender and HIV status as part of their remit to treat the Convention as a “living document”. Clause 3 (3) of the Bill of Rights gives the courts the right to re-interpret Convention rights more restrictively, by reference to the preparatory work that preceded the agreement of the Convention in the atmosphere of the later 1940s. (Clause 3 (2)).
Many critics have pointed out that the new legislation will be the first bill of rights that will actually reduce people’s rights. Conference believes that it is a right wing ideological attack on human rights that will disproportionately impact the most marginalised in society, including disabled and LGBT+ people.
The Ministry of Justice, in the consultation “Human Rights Act Reform” (December 2021) in Appendix 1 argued that domestic legislation, in the form of the Equality Act 2010, covers the provisions of Article 14. However, the Equality Act was underpinned by European Union law in the form of the Equal Treatment Directive. Brexit will now allow Parliament to amend primary legislation such as the Equality Act without reference to EU law, and the Bill of Rights will prevent the courts from using Convention rights to override parliamentary will. Hard won disability and LGBT+ rights will now be dependent on the whim of Parliament.
The Conservative government uses disingenuous arguments and weasel words to try to claim the new Bill of Rights will restore the primacy of the UK parliament when in fact it will give the government more power to act with impunity, without protest, and without oversight.
The proposed Bill marks a dangerous reduction in rights as follows:
a)It will allow the UK courts to ignore long established case law on equalities issues from the European Court of Human Rights, putting disability and LGBT+ equality back decades.
b)It will stop the European Court of Human Rights granting injunctions, such as the one against removal flights to Rwanda granted in Spring 2022, even though Rwanda is not a safe place to be LGBT+.
c)It will allow the Government to increase the use of prison Separation Centres and stop any legal challenge, expanding the state’s powers against those who are least able to speak up for themselves.
Conference therefore calls on the National Disabled Members Committee to:
1)Raise awareness of the threat the Bill of Rights poses to the HRA and to LGBT+ and disabled people’s rights and work with the Labour Party, via the Labour link, to seek to raise these issues in the UK parliament
2)Campaign with appropriate bodies calling for the withdrawal of the bill