Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

What I believe—and what I suspect many of our constituents believe—is that human rights are important, but that it should be our courts that adjudicate on such questions rather than the Court in Strasbourg. It is extremely important to recognise that the Court in Strasbourg has given rulings suggesting that responsibility for some matters that the right hon. Gentleman and I would agree should be determined by Parliament in this country should be accrued to that Court in Strasbourg. That is simply wrong. He knows that, and I know that. The other thing that he knows, as a member of the Opposition home affairs team and a former Minister in the Home Office, is that it has been extremely difficult to deport those who create a real threat to the British people, because of their abuse of human rights laws. We intend to do something about that, but it appears that his party does not.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it would be prudent to revert to the situation that we had before the Human Rights Act was passed, in which a court case could be referred to the European Court of Human Rights, and the ruling could then be applied to the law of the land?

[The Attorney-General]

I certainly think that the judgments of the Court in Strasbourg will be looked at by our courts in the circumstances that my hon. Friend describes, and that they will no doubt take note of some of them. I do not think it right, however, that the courts in this country should be obliged to take account of the judgments of the Strasbourg Court, and that is what we would change. It is perfectly reasonable for the courts in this country to look at judgments not only from Europe but from other jurisdictions, but it should not be obligatory for them to do so, and that is what we would change.