European Convention on Human Rights

Lord Faulks Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, on securing this debate. More than 10 years after the enactment of this momentous piece of legislation, it is time to consider whether the Human Rights Act has lived up to expectations. It is a subject rarely out of the news, but a dispassionate look at its successes and its failures is required.

The title of the White Paper, Rights Brought Home, published in 1997, echoed the consultation document published earlier by the Labour Party entitled Bringing Rights Home. The rhetoric surrounding the introduction of the legislation created a picture of rights invented by us at last being brought into our courts, sparing citizens the long, tedious and expensive journey to secure justice in Strasbourg. It is not without irony that the recent publication by the Policy Exchange is entitled Bringing Rights Back Home. This paper advances the case not for steps to “give further effect” to the convention, as did the Human Rights Act, but rather that control should now be retaken of the convention so as to limit or even eradicate the effect in this country of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

No one in your Lordships’ House or outside can be against the idea of protecting human rights. Few would quarrel with the identification of fundamental rights included in the convention, which we signed in 1950, but even the most fervent supporter of the Act must have quietly despaired at the popular disaffection with it. Sadly, the idea of human rights, once such a noble aspiration, has become trivialised. Since the passing of the Act, I have been engaged as a barrister representing public authorities in claims in tort and now under the Human Rights Act, mainly in the Appeal Court. The Act did not make an immediate impact in this field, but I can tell noble Lords that there has now been a positive explosion of activity. Was this to be expected?

More than a decade ago, a great deal of time and money was spent in educating judges and the legal profession about the forthcoming legislation. Revisiting some of the literature now, it is instructive to see how speculative were the views of commentators about the likely impact of the Act. Perhaps it should have been more obvious that those who would rely on the Act would not be, for the most part, the most attractive members of society. Unfortunately, it has not always been the poor, the sick, the disabled and the homeless who have used it, but prisoners, bogus asylum seekers and illegal immigrants. This has not helped to endear the public to the Act.

One of the more surprising features of the Act has been the response of our judges to the challenges that is has thrown up. Section 2 imposed an obligation on courts to “take into account” Strasbourg jurisprudence rather than to follow it, but the House of Lords Judicial Committee in the case of Ullah said that it was the duty of national courts,

“to keep pace with the Strasbourg jurisprudence as it evolves over time: no more: but certainly no less".

I do not think that Parliament truly expected such acquiescence.

In the passage of the Bill, an amendment was put down the effect of which was to limit the binding effect of Strasbourg case law. In opposing the amendment, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, said:

“As other noble Lords have said, the word ‘binding’ is the language of strict precedent but the convention has no rule of precedent …We take the view that the expression ‘take in account’ is clear enough … it is important that our courts have the scope to apply that discretion so as to aid in the development of human rights law. There may also be occasions when it would be right for the United Kingdom courts to depart from Strasbourg decisions”.—[Official Report, 19/1/98; col. 1270-71.]

The way decisions are reached in the ECHR is very different from the approach in this country, where there is a strong regard for precedent and consistency in decision-making. Our courts have expended enormous intellectual energy in trying to impose some sort of order on the ad hoc decisions that emanate from Strasbourg. Despite these efforts, considerable uncertainty has resulted as to what the law is, with the result that many Human Rights Act cases reach the appellate courts, with consequent expense to all parties, principally public authorities.

For those who were prospectively concerned about the potential loss of identity in our law by reason of the impending legislation, reassurance was offered by the prospect of the “margin of appreciation”. The Secretary of State for the Home Department, Mr Jack Straw, said on 3 June 1998:

“The doctrine of the margin of appreciation means allowing this country a margin of appreciation when it interprets our law and the actions of our Governments in an international court, perhaps the European Court of Human Rights. Through incorporation we are giving a profound margin of appreciation to British courts to interpret the convention in accordance with British jurisprudence as well as European jurisprudence”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/6/98; col. 424.]

Those who were concerned that the Human Rights Act would have insufficient impact on our law were afraid that too much respect would be paid to the margin of appreciation—that there would even be a double margin of appreciation—but the reality is that it has featured hardly at all in the responses by courts here to the often-controversial decisions emanating from Strasbourg, which have largely been remarkably creative interpretations of the fundamental rights embodied in the convention. The courts have thought it appropriate not restrict to themselves to the protection of fundamental rights but frequently to reinterpret United Kingdom obligations in areas such as policing, social services, education and even the administration of prisons. These are surely areas where one would expect the courts to reflect the margin of appreciation.

Judges here have been perhaps slightly supine in the face of some curious decisions coming from Strasbourg, but there has of late been a flicker of a response. In the recent case of Horncastle, the Supreme Court declined to follow a decision of the ECHR and encouraged what it described as a “dialogue” to begin between the courts here and there. Experience suggests that any such exchange is less likely to be the elegant exchanges of a Noel Coward play and rather more a Beckett monologue, with Strasbourg the only speaking part.

This leads to prisoners' votes. A significant majority of the UK population is against them voting, although some might regard the right to vote as slightly less controversial than the right to receive heroin substitute, which has been the subject of a large number of claims against those responsible for the “health” of prisoners. However, Strasbourg has decided that the parliamentary ban is insufficiently nuanced and has persisted in this view, notwithstanding the view expressed by the House of Commons in the recent debate.

I welcome the commission set up by the Deputy Prime Minister, which has an enormous and vital task to perform. The members of the commission will not be short of advice. I am sure that they will not be swayed by the tabloid headlines that have so disfigured the debate so far. I only wish that I could tell the House that all the newspaper stories were fundamentally wrong, but they are not.

No one who followed the introduction of the Act can question the motives of those behind the legislation. It took tenacity and intellectual courage to see it through. It would take even greater courage to accept its major shortcomings and the need for change.