- Conference
- 2025 National LGBT+ Conference
- Date
- 23 July 2025
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference believes that human rights are to be enjoyed by and afforded to all in a fair, democratic, and decent society.
History tells us minority groups, such as Jewish people, disabled people, LGBT+ people have been targets by oppressors seeking to infringe or limit human rights and freedoms, as we have seen in the atrocities of World War Two (WWII). The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) was set up in 1959, following the aftermath of WWII and exists to protect people and honour human rights for all.
Today, over 70 years since its inception, we still see infringements on the rights of people, and the fight to protect human rights and freedoms continues. For LGBT+ people in the United Kingdom (UK), the ECtHR has made several judgments that have improved the lives and freedoms we now enjoy. Including:
a)The decriminalisation of homosexual acts in Northern Ireland came about thanks to a case called Dudgeon from 1981.
b)a case called Smith and Grady made clear that banning LGBT+ people from serving in the Armed Forces breaches human rights.
c)And the Goodwin and I case that addressed the legal recognition of transgender people, prompting the UK Government to introduce the Gender Recognition Bill to give effect to the ECtHR’s judgment.
Conference believes that the UK Government has recently attacked the rights of many marginalised communities, such as migrants, disabled people and trans, non-binary and gender diverse people. As the UK is a signatory to the European Human Rights Convention, rights given by the Convention are protected in practice by the ECtHR, and we are able to bring about cases to this court to challenge the UK Government where appropriate.
However, there has been calls for UK to leave the ECtHR. Conference believes this would be disastrous as the ECtHR is a person’s last resort for holding the state to account when it has abused their rights. Conference therefore calls for a robust defence of protection of the freedoms we are granted through the UK’s membership of the ECtHR.
Conference calls on the national LGBT+ committee to:
1)Create and share resources on the importance of the UK’s membership of the ECtHR and its significance for LGBT+ members.
2)Seek to work with the national executive council to oppose campaigns that call on the UK to leave the ECtHR.