Daniel Hannan is one of the most persuasive advocates of repealing the Human Rights Act. In this week’s Spectator he was at his most eloquent and self-confident best, urging Michael Gove to see off the “powerful, wealthy & articulate” lawyers that prefer the rule of Strasbourg to that of the English common law, and warning of the “vicious” response to be expected from lawyers who, he asserts, might say – and even believe – that they are “defending the independence of the judiciary,” but are in fact motivated by the need to pay their mortgages and school fees, which are currently funded by a “multi-million pound industry … around human rights law.”
That last bit about money is rather a cheap shot. The notion that the Human Rights Act has spawned a “multi-million pound industry” is pretty far fetched. Very few cases are brought because of the Human Rights Act, and in the field of criminal law, where I practise, virtually none at all. Although the Act occasionally crops up during a criminal trial, its abolition would make no difference whatsoever to the volume of my work, or to my income and nor would it make any difference to that of the vast majority of my colleagues, very few of whom, incidentally, could begin to afford school fees out of their earnings at the bar, which have shrunk steadily since the Human Rights Act was passed.
But having got the lazy, crowd-pleasing dig against rich lawyers off his chest, Mr Hannan then turns to the meat of the issue with the two problems that, in his view, Mr Gove needs to solve. I hope I don’t do Mr Hannan an injustice if I label them in this way:
- The Sovereignty Problem
The Human Rights Act “gives direct effect to the rulings of the Strasbourg court in Britain;” and
- The Democracy Problem
The European Convention “cheapens democracy by allowing jurists to advance an agenda that would be rejected at the ballot box.”
Unfortunately, Mr Hannan’s argument, elegantly and persuasively as it is developed, displays the same utter confusion that lies at the heart of the Government’s policy on the issue.
Let’s start with the “Sovereignty problem.” Mr Hannan’s premise is that the Human Rights Act gives “direct effect” to the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights. That might indeed be a problem if it were true; but it isn’t. The Human Rights Act does not give direct effect to the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights. If your premise is wrong, then no matter how beautifully expressed the rest of your argument may be, it won’t hold water.
The relevant part of the Human Rights Act is Section 2, and all that that does is require British courts to “take into account any:
judgment, decision, declaration or advisory opinion of the European Court of Human Rights;”
Taking something “into account” does not mean agreeing with it, or necessarily obeying it. And as the English courts have made quite clear it certainly does not mean “giving direct effect to it.” For example, in the case of Vinter the European Court of Human Rights found in July 2013 that a whole-life term of imprisonment was incompatible with Article 3 of the Convention (which prohibits torture and inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment). It was a conclusion which the England and Wales Court of Appeal Criminal Division took into account, and then expressly disagreed with when, on the Attorney General’s application, it imposed a whole-life term on a double murderer in February 2014. It was a clash between the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Appeal: and the Court of Appeal won. This was not a unique case: in 2009 the Supreme Court, had declined to follow the European Court of Human Rights in Horncastle, a case about the admissibility in evidence of the statement of a deceased witness.
In those rare cases where the Strasbourg Court has prevailed – Mr Hannan cites its ruling that Abu Qatada should not be deported – it has not done so because the Human Rights Act gives it ultimate authority over British law – it does no such thing – but because the Government, like every government since Winston Churchill’s second administration, has agreed to abide by its judgments as a matter of international law. Unlike some international law, this is very simple. If a nation state signs a treaty committing it to do something, it must do it. The commitment in Article 46 (1) of the Convention could not be clearer:
“The High Contracting Parties undertake to abide by the final judgment of the Court in any case to which they are parties.”
The Human Rights Act has no relevance to this: in particular, the Strasbourg Court’s decision on Abu Qatada, which Mr Hannan relies on heavily, had nothing to do with the Human Rights Act. It would make just as much sense to blame the Dangerous Dogs Act (and even more sense to repeal it). It is true that Qatada did, unsuccessfully, attempt to use the Human Rights Act in the English courts, but our Supreme Court, after considering the Human Rights Act, ruled against him.
I suppose you could just about call the Government’s commitment to abide by the Strasbourg Court’s decisions an infringement of sovereignty of sorts, but if so it is an infringement that we have lived with since 1953, and the sort that is happily accepted in many other international treaties about which no-one, even Mr Hannan, has ever shown any particular concern. Does anyone seriously suggest, for example, that the United Kingdom submitting to the arbitration provisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is an appalling interference with national sovereignty? If so their criticism has been very muted.
What of the judgment, also mentioned by Mr Hannan, that the blanket ban on prisoners voting is an interference with their human rights? Again, it had everything to do with the European Convention but nothing whatever to do with the Human Rights Act. The prisoners could, and no doubt would, have taken their case to Strasbourg even if the Human Rights Act had never been passed.
As it happens, the outcome of the prisoners’ vote case demonstrates not the strength but the weakness of the European Court. Despite the Court’s repeated rulings that the ban on prisoners voting breaches their human rights, British prisoners still don’t have the vote. This would be a curious outcome if, as Mr Hannan says, the European Court’s rulings had “direct effect” in this country.
So to the extent that the Sovereignty Problem is actually a problem at all – and it really isn’t much of one – it has nothing to do with the Human Rights Act, it is a problem that arises out of the UK’s signature of the European Convention. Repealing the Human Rights Act will not have the slightest effect on that.
What, then, of the “Democracy Problem?”
Judges, says Mr Hannan, are routinely using the Human Rights Act to apply the Convention in ways that were never intended by its authors. In doing so, he says, they are ignoring what the law says, in favour of what they think the law ought to say.
This is certainly a legitimate concern, and the tension between applying existing law and making new law is, as he acknowledges, one that existed long before the Human Rights Act. To take but one example, when the House of Lords declared in 1991 that, contrary to the almost universally accepted view to the contrary, rape could take place within marriage it stretched the concept of judges “applying,” as opposed to “making” law almost to breaking point, and did so long before the Human Rights Act was passed. But the Human Rights Act, he suggests, has encouraged judges to use the open-ended language of the the European Convention to extend law-making into places that ought to be the sole preserve of elected politicians. That is a perfectly defensible point of view.
But now his argument takes a strange turn. Having lambasted British judges for using the Human Rights Act to stretch the law to help undeserving litigants – Afghan hijackers, Libyan alcoholics and so on – you might have expected that his solution would be to get rid of the rights, at least as statutory legal entitlements open to judicial interpretation. That would have made logical sense, and would, at least slightly, hinder these politically minded judges bent on usurping the democratic will of the people.
But no: his solution to meddling judges playing at politics is not to abolish the rights but to keep them; and, what’s more, to augment them. To do this he suggests a huge amendment to the 1688 Bill of Rights. As well as the existing Convention rights (perhaps rebranded as “British” rights), Mr Hannan’s amended Bill of Rights will include guarantees of:
“… freedom of contract and employment, freedom from oppressive, arbitrary or punitive taxation.”
How a judge – even a red cheeked John Bull living entirely on roast beef – would be supposed to apply a new right of freedom from “punitive taxation” without trespassing on political ground is not explained. One would have thought that of all issues, setting the level of taxation was quintessentially one for Parliament rather than for judges.
As it happens, I rather like his idea of amending the Bill of Rights. There would be enormous practical problems in implementing it, but there is an attractive romanticism about the project. But the idea that such a Statute, containing all the existing rights of the European Convention plus one or two others deemed to be especially British, would in some way act as a brake upon the perceived problem of too much judicial intervention in political questions is simply nonsensical. On the contrary, given a British charter of human rights to work with, British judges would almost certainly feel emboldened to become more activist than ever before. Indeed, should they wish to avail themselves of it, it is hard to imagine anything that would give judges greater opportunity to “advance an agenda that would be rejected at the ballot box” than Mr Hannan’s proposed Bill of Rights.
So there we have it.
The solution to the perceived problem of the European Court of Human Rights having too much power?
Repeal an Act that has almost no effect on the European Court’s power.
The solution to the perceived problem of judges having too much power?
Pass an Act that gives them all the powers they already have, plus a few enormous extra ones for good measure, but call it the “British Bill of Rights” instead of the “Human Rights Act.”
I am sure Mr Gove will read Hannan’s piece carefully and after his spell as Education Secretary he may well find himself mentally marking it. How should he grade it?
As a polemic it deserves an A, and would have merited an A* before Mr Gove put an end to grade inflation.
As a coherent solution to the legal problems it identifies.… Well, Mr Gove is, as Hannan says “the politest man in Christendom.” Perhaps, rather than give it a grade he should just write at the bottom of the paper those two words that send a chill down the spine of even the most self-confident pupil:
“See me.”
Picture of Daniel Hannan is courtesy of Photopin photo credit: <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/22007612@N05/6877695181″>Daniel Hannan</a> via <a href=”https://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/”>(license)</a>
The UK acceded to the EtHR’s jurisdiction in 1966 under Wilson, not 1952. Churchill was dead by then.
Wikipedia will do
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Kingdom#Right_of_petition
Whilst Hannan’s positive proposals are largely nonsense, the case for the HRA is not that easy. see further
https://spinninghugo.wordpress.com/2015/05/15/four-bad-arguments-and-a-good-one-for-the-human-rights-act/
I’ve changed the date to 1953, which is when the ECHR came into force.
But it was negotiated and ratified by the Attlee administration. This was done before Churchill’s second administration. Ratification took place in March 1951: before Attlee’s government fell in the October election.
The Court itself only came into existence in 1959, not 1952.
It is true that other states could claim against the UK before 1966, but this hardly ever happened (I think Greece did bring a claim against the UK, but I don’t know of another case off the top of my head).
The impression you try to give here, which is a common one, that this was all done under Churchill is just wrong. The negotiations and ratification, accession to the court, and incorporation into UK domestic law all occurred under Labour government s (1948-51, 1966, 1998).
That was not the impression I was trying to give & if I did, thanks for the correction. The point I’m trying to make is that the ECHR, with provision for the Court, and for abiding by its rulings, came into effect during Churchill’s premiership & neither he nor any of his successors tried to leave it.
I appreciate that you think the current situation is appropriate, but if those are the effects of adopting the court proposed by Daniel Hannan, why do you oppose them?
Do you oppose giving judges more power? If so, why?
Readers nowadays are spoiled. In my day we didn’t have it all laid out. We had to make our own objections.
I think the reason why judges in the UK aren’t thought to need more powers is the fear of illegitimately defeating the will or the interests of the true sovereign as Dicey called it, i.e. the people (as represented by the sovereign elected Parliament). It’s for elected representatives to defeat and frustrate that will and be kicked out for it!
That said it’s not clear the state of the law in many areas does indeed express said will. However, popular objections to HRA provisions are entirely ill-informed caprice. Contract needs reform more than does the HRA.
Thank you Matthew ! I now feel as though I understand this issue a lot better !
The arbitration provisions of GATT don’t seem the best example, given how controversial the similar ISDS provisions allegedly in TTIP have been.
I think you give the sovereignty argument too much credit. Parliamentary sovereignty is a misnomer. It is a term bandied around every time there is a perceived conflict with the ECHR, used to supposedly describe our grand democratic institution (the larger chamber of which is not elected), committed to ‘British values’ (which always seem to differ, depending on which party is on the pedestal).
The reality is that, in almost all instances, we are actually describing executive dominance. The complaint from the Conservatives that the will of Parliament is being ‘undermined’ may be technically correct, but it is ultimately dishonest and it must not be given credit. The true objection is not to ‘Parliament’ being undermined, but to the fear that the government will be unable to push through its own political agenda (rather than the democratic ‘will of the people’, with only 25% of the nation actually having voted Conservative), or unable to act in a way which undermines the rights of individuals.
On matters of international human rights law, we often want to be seen to be seen to commit to rights treaties and charters, but aren’t really committed to complying (e.g. corporal punishment in the family home and the UNCRC. Intriguingly, the ECtHR’s position on ‘reasonable’ chastisement conflicts greatly with HRC and CRC case law.)
However, the ECHR provides a means of enforcement through political and economic sanctions. Cameron would, no doubt, like to put Britain in a position where it remains party to yet another piece of international law that it can proceed to disregard without consequence. At the heart of the Convention is the concept that in order to protect individuals’ rights, we cannot leave them solely in the hands of a single Parliament or, as is the reality, a single government. We can continue to frame public debate around rights and ‘responsibilities’ and pretend that rights are a means of protecting our loved ones from evil-doers lurking round every corner (insert Daily Mail headline here), or put forward the difficult reality (for Middle England) that human rights are, ultimately, a means of protecting people from the state, i.e. the government… rather than other individuals (emphasis on the word ‘ultimately’, as of course, human rights can have horizontal effect). Further, whilst human rights may operate to protect everyone (Liberty’s Common Values campaign has worked hard to demonstrate this to the public), those for whom human rights are most crucial are often the less popular members of our society. I was fortunate to have attended the Liberty 25th Conference back in 2009, witnessing Tom Bingham’s Keynote Address. Human rights are not, he stressed, for the likes of lawyers, but for those who are at any time the subject of public obloquy. Bingham’s Address, and much of the subsequent panel discussion, concerned the Tories’ pledge to scrap the HRA if elected in 2010. Dominic Grieve (appearing for the Conservative party) attempted to outline their plans, with some degree of difficulty. It is strange that whilst six years later the Conservatives’ contempt for human rights is so much more profound, their thoughts as to how to proceed to replace the HRA do not seem to have developed. One hopes that such ambiguity (assisted by party splits and constitutional complications) will prove to be their downfall.
of course none of those wishing to abolish the HRA are “powerful, wealthy & articulate” 😉
What a load of self-serving tosh from Hannan.
“A court or tribunal determining a question which has arisen in connection with a Convention right must take into account any—judgment, decision, declaration or advisory opinion of the European Court of Human Rights,”
“In those rare cases where the Strasbourg Court has prevailed […] it has not done so because the Human Rights Act gives it ultimate authority over British law – it does no such thing – but because the Government, like every government since Winston Churchill’s second administration, has agreed to abide by its judgments as a matter of international law”
This is rather curious. All you have to do to salvage Mr Hannan’s argument is remove any mention of “direct effect” and ask why we choose “to abide by its judgments as a matter of international law”. The Human Rights Act does not afford the European Court of Human Rights any sense of legitimacy nor does it make its opinion binding, that privilege, comes from convention or, if I am led to believe everything written in this article, our commitment to overlooked international human rights law.
Well onto the dragon’s head then.
I don’t pretend to understand all the Human Rights legislation, but what I strongly object to is the concept of any court having supremacy over our own Supreme Court in any matter.
Outside the European countries, I am not aware of any country accepting the jurisdiction of a court that has supremacy over their own supreme courts, so why should we?
No-one thinks any less of Australia, Canada, New Zealand or America for not submitting to the jurisdiction of some court outside their own country, so why should we not be the same? If we want to adopt the principles of the European Human Rights legislation, by all means do so provided that our Supreme Court is the final arbiter in any case brought in the UK.
English Pensioner, the Supreme Court is supreme in all matters brought in an English court. The ECtHR affects our international obligations. It doesn’t & can’t change English law, with or without the Human Rights Act.
There must always be a higher court to protect us against the fallibility of our own governments. We hope that the International Criminal Court will manage to get Al-Bashir of Sudan arrested in South Africa this June despite the South African government seeming to protect him and the African Union thinking it can grant “immunity”. As a Briton regularly abroad, I am glad there are international treaties and higher courts.