LGBT News Tory government scrapping the Human Rights Act

The difference between this and the HRA in 1998 is that in 1998 the bill had cross-party support. Unless such a bill has cross-party support it doesn't sit right with me that they can simply impose it based on what they think is right - and I would think the same whoever was in power at the time.

The inclusion of 'British' makes me cringe - it's ridiculously naff - as if British makes it inherently better.

 

This is sounding awful. They can't do that, can they? They can't invalidate international law. Human rights are universal - they apply to everyone, regardless of country.

 

Seems suspicious they announce this after Teresa May announced snooping laws (stuff like the NSA) will be put I'm place especially seen as how the human rights act prevents intrusion into others information without warrants (or something like that)

 

The whole point of it being a super national treaty is that governments are held accountable by an external body and not by domestic institutions with a law that politicians can just change anytime they don't like the sort of rulings they get.

I completely forgot all these nasty tory policies they'd buried while they were with the libdems. Honestly I'd be so fucking angry if they managed to do this, surely there's a handful of sensible tory mps whp wouldn't go for it and block it :eusa_pray ken clarke or someone like that from tories needs to save us please :eusa_pray:eusa_pray

Or maybe the lords will throw it out like they did 42 day detention?

We're four days into tory majority and I'm so mad already :icon_sad:

 

People are getting the totally wrong idea of what leaving the ECHR is. Firstly it has nothing to do with the EU as it was founded in the 1950 to prevent a repeat of Nazi Germany. Remember, in 1950 and onwards homosexuality was punishable by chemical castration. So it did absolutely nothing to help LGBT rights.

The main reason for opting out is there are several clauses which severely undermine the British legal system, the 'right to a family life' clause is being abused by convicted criminals from being deported. It also is being abused by those in prison as it allows their wife to artificially seminated with their sperm to have a child - at the cost of the state.

There has been an ongoing dispute between the ECHR and the UKs policy on prisoners losing their right to vote, as losing the right to vote is deemed 'an unusual or cruel form of punishment'. This too is the reason why it was ruled by the ECHR in 2013 that murderers cannot be sentenced to life in prison.

It also means the the UK must 'take into account' rulings by Strasbourg, one example of this is that under our laws it is illegal to posses controlled drugs. But an ECHR ruling dictates that a defence to this is that the person caught with the drugs did not know it was an illegal substance. An argument usable in court to which the accused does not have to provide any evidence of, only to state it.

The change being put forward by the Tories is to change the role the ECHR plays in our country. Mainly that it will no longer be able to change UK law, to remove it's legal binding over the Supreme Court and to make it an advisory body. What is interesting to note that in Germany - the country it was designed to protect - if there is a conflict between ECHR law and German state law, German law takes precedence.

There has been much shouting about 'The Tories are scrapping human rights' when this is not the case, it is simply amending laws which are being abused and to change our relationship with which we have with the ECHR.


This has been a party political broadcast by the Conservative Party :roflmao:

 

^^

Actually you're wrong, the ECHR was the reason behind the unequal age of consent being deemed a breech of human rights and was responsible for gay people being allowed to serve in the armed forces.

A ruling from a UK court isn't necessarily fairer than a ruling from Strausbourg, and this entire proposal is based on outrage following 'a right to a family life' cases, as if a few individual cases makes the entire convention invalid or something. Contrary to prevailing opinion the ECHR has done a lot of good for a lot of people who feel that appealing to the ECHR is a an attempt of last resort.

You, myself and millions of others have benefited from the ECHR, whether we are aware of it or not.

 

Only because this bypassed the Supreme Court and went right to Strasbourg, it's not as if all these protections will no longer exist, they will be adopted into the new bill.

 

Elections have consequences, that's all I'm going to say here. We'll see how long it is until people are sick of Mr. Cameron.

 

Having the Human Rights Act is a requirement for being in the EU. I wonder how they're going to negotiate their way out of that..

 

Knowing how the UKIP and Torys think of the EU as an institution, they'll probably have a dual referendum on abolishing the Human Rights Act and leaving the EU. If one or the other (or both) passes, they'll be the laughingstock of Europe. :lol:

 

#DoTheHumanRightThing Do the human right thing: share the campaign

 

I think it's only right they show us what would be in this bill of rights before scrapping the HR act.

 

Agreed, and not just that but it should have cross-party support and be put to a referendum I think.

In any case some issues raised in this article make the British Bill of Rights project look very problematic: Michael Gove's attempt to repeal the Human Rights Act faces almost insurmountable odds - Telegraph

 

God help us if Gove is behind this. That man is a senseless idiot of astronomic proportions.

 

The point of human rights is that they ought to be non-negotiable. If you can selectively abolish ones you don't like (for however good reasons and with whatever popular support) the rest of human right legislation becomes if not immediately worthless, then at least far weaker than it should be. Or in short, if you deny the right to family life, then why not right to life? Where does it stop?

Nor human rights are some kind of prize only "the Deserving" can enjoy, they're the opposite. At their most basic they're one of the ways to set up the limits on what a state can do to people it hates, the majority of its voter hate and you personally wish didn't exist, the criminals being one of the more obvious instances. Obeying such limits isn't always easy because following your conscience and practising mercy isn't always easy, but it's what keeps our lives from being solitary, nasty, brutish and short, and I'm all for that.

So even if you can agree for the sake of the argument that some of the ECHR rights shouldn't have been there, you can't just remove them by a popular vote (let alone by a legislative act) not without ditching the whole concept and, replacing it with a completely new moral and legal framework.

 

As I said earlier, no it is not. The UK joined the ECHR in 1950, and the EU in 1973. There are 47 countries in the ECHR and 28 in the EU.

 

To be fair, that ECHR existed before the EU and that there are non-EU signatories doesn't prove your point... It just proves Council of Europe isn't the same organization as the EU.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that no one ever saw a situation where someone would want to leave CoE (which requires adherence to EHCR) but not the EU (which only "expects" the members to adhere) and the jurisdictional mess this would create may at the very least have the effect opposite of what authors of that idea hope to achieve...

 

I just want to quote this because I think it is so spot on that it is necessary to see it repeated.

Human Rights as a whole exist to protect everyone, but it is rare that everyone needs protection in a supposedly free and democratic society. Those that require the protection of Human Rights are often the most despised, hated, reviled, and marginalized. Those are the people most likely to be deprived of their rights, and it is often through the consent of the majority.

As LGBT people we have experienced this very phenomenon. In the United States this happens every time a politician decries courts for protecting our rights, and demands that the people should get a chance to vote. Few people stop to ask the question why the majority, who in this case are straight, should vote on the rights of a minority. Our rights depend on neither their love nor their support, they are inherent in our dignity as equal human beings. The Courts exist as a supposedly non-biased institution to affirm that fact.

Any attempt by the British Government (I will not concede to call them the government of the UK), to undermine the human rights of its citizens because it dislikes this group or that group should be thoroughly condemned. Not only by those within the country, but the international community--including the United States.