European Court of Human Rights

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes an important point: this country’s implementation of ECHR judgments has been very good and consistent with our obligation to respect and implement our international treaty obligations. He referred to the number of additional cases. The process that was started at Interlaken, where the United Kingdom was represented by the distinguished former Attorney-General, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, is under way, and it is hoped that when Britain has the chairmanship of the Council of Europe for six months starting in November this year, we will be able to build on these reforms.

The Government’s position on prisoner voting has been set out, but we have also requested that the court’s judgment in the case of Greens and MT v UK should be referred to the Grand Chamber of the European Court. If the Grand Chamber agrees to the referral, it will look at the case again and issue its own judgment.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, given that there are 250 applications to the Supreme Court for appeals in this country and 2,700 applications from the United Kingdom to the European Court, do the Government have any plans for having two or three more divisions of the Supreme Court in this country, perhaps sitting in Downing Street, to hear human rights cases as a court of final appeal, with full legal aid, and thus give some succour to the legal profession?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I am not aware that the Government have any plans to set up such additional divisions of the Supreme Court, but I am sure that the point made by my noble friend will have been noted by the Ministry of Justice.