Queen’s Speech

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been an enlightening and enlightened debate, and there have been wiser counsels than mine own, but I want to concentrate on one particular aspect and express my deep concern at the Government’s intention to publish proposals with a view to scrapping the Human Rights Act and proposing a British Bill of Rights.

I never thought that in my lifetime and in the 21st century I would see human rights, or rather the judgments based on the European Convention on Human Rights, become a political issue that could result in diminishing human rights and access to justice in this country. There are huge consequences to such an approach, both domestically and internationally, as well as consequences for our continuing membership of the European Union, a Union based on fundamental values, human rights and the rule of law.

Let me be clear from the outset what I think the Government’s intentions are. They are to appease their right wing and the leader writers of the tabloids in particular and the right-wing press in general. It is about constructing a potential Bill which will deliver judgments that the Government believe they can live with and the public will approve of. It is a dangerous route of populism for a country built on the tradition of the protection of the individual both at home and abroad.

Access to the courts on issues such as human rights or the interpretation of such rights defines us as a democracy. I believe that the problems are with the judgments which have been delivered from the European Court of Human Rights, and from our own Supreme Court, when they have not fitted comfortably with the Government’s view of human rights or those of the right-wing press. So we scrap the Human Rights Act, which has worked well—there have been many examples in this debate. Then we withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights because we do not like the judgments delivered from that court, or indeed the justiciability of such a court. What happens, then, when the Executive or some future Government do not like or welcome the judgments from the Supreme Court when based on a Bill of Rights? Do we scrap that Bill or do we place judges in the courts to deliver judgments that are palpable? The road ahead is worrying indeed and we will never appease the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Telegraph or the Times—none of them. We will have lost power to so-called populism: to the mob.

The fury and misrepresentation around judgments from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has bordered on the hysterical but I remind your Lordships that many rights exist in this country today because courageous individuals and organisations took their cases to that court. Before the Human Rights Act, they had to quite literally drag their cases through the domestic courts before they could have their rights recognised, then upheld, in Strasbourg. Even then, in some instances, Governments resisted.

The infamous judgment on the rights of prisoners to vote was, sadly, hysterically seized upon by most political parties but the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg did not state that prisoners should have the vote. It stated that a blanket ban was in breach of the convention, and so it is. Let the punishment fit the crime; if we believe in a Prison Service which is redemptive, should we not prepare our people to carry out their civic duties and responsibilities when they leave prison, including participation in democratic elections? There are myths—many myths—but I would rather have a system which could be abused by a small number of people than diminish the right to a fair hearing, or diminish the human rights of communities and out-of-favour minorities or individuals.

I believe that a civilised democracy—a civilised country—is judged by how it treats its least favoured, least revered and least loved individuals or minorities. On a personal note, I come from a minority which is still much maligned and misrepresented. Even today, our rights in some parts of the United Kingdom are still resisted or denied. The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual people are still not universally welcomed or accepted in the United Kingdom. Sadly, even in Northern Ireland, same-sex marriage is still not legal or available. I remember well that until the 1990s, we in our community had virtually no rights in this country. We now have them, due in great part to the courage of individuals and organisations such as Stonewall, which pursued individual cases through the courts to Strasbourg. The rights that I enjoy from the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act—the rights that we all enjoy—are enjoyed because generations of individuals have had the courage to stand up against injustice, tyrannies and Governments to demand equality. They demanded not to be treated better but to be treated equally.

Let me conclude. On behalf of the least favoured and least popular, and in defence of the human rights of all and the principle that human rights are universal and do not stop at manmade borders or during manmade wars, I urge your Lordships to defend vigorously the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights. It is better that our lives as legislators are made more difficult and we face criticism from populists than that the rights of another be sacrificed on the misconstructed altar of public opinion, which will shift and shift. I am very clear indeed on this. Judges and judgments are not there to please or to make the lives of politicians or Governments easy, or easier. They are there to make our lives difficult and, where necessary, to make us think again—to pause and hesitate—and never more so than in the realms of human rights and civil liberties.