British Bill of Rights

Lord Lester of Herne Hill Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

That this House takes note of the report of the Commission on a British Bill of Rights.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for reminding us that this House has decent standards. On this occasion I am able to plead not guilty.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to initiate a debate on the report of the Commission on a Bill of Rights, of which I was a member. I am also glad that two of my fellow commissioners, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, and so many other distinguished Members will take part. I look forward especially to the speeches in reply to the debate from the noble Lord, Lord Bach, with whom I worked when I was an unpaid independent adviser to Jack Straw under the Brown Government, and from my noble friend Lord McNally. I have mentioned those taking part in the debate; I am also glad to say that Sir Leigh Lewis, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Browne-Wilkinson, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the former Attorney-General of India, Soli Sorabjee, are all here to witness the debate.

We were nine commissioners: eight white QCs, one woman and two Scots, with the distinguished former civil servant Sir Leigh Lewis as chair. As I said, he is here today to witness our debate. Sir Leigh had Solomon’s wisdom and the patience of Job. In attempting to secure a unanimous report he endured, like Job, much undeserved suffering. In the current polarised political climate of hostility to Europe’s political and legal institutions, well reflected within the commission, it was a thankless task. However, the report was and will remain important and its quality owes much to the dedicated able staff who supported us. I hope it will be read when the time is ripe for much needed coherent and enduring constitutional reform.

There are two main reasons in favour of a modern constitutional Bill of Rights: a good reason and a bad reason. The good reason is that, instead of relying upon a European treaty to define and protect our fundamental civil and political rights and liberties, we need a home-grown constitutional measure based on our constitutional and legal heritage that will command widespread public confidence beyond the courts and the legal profession. The bad reason is that a home-grown Bill of Rights would enable us to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights and the ability to seek redress from the European Court of Human Rights where our courts are unable to provide a remedy. According to this view it would enable the Human Rights Act to be scrapped and replaced by a measure that gave more power to the Executive and Parliament to restrict or limit our civil rights and freedoms.

Many of those who would agree that there are good reasons in theory in favour of a modern Bill of Rights fear, with good reason, that its adoption would result in our withdrawal from the European system for human rights protection and would strengthen state power at the expense of individual freedom and the protection of minorities against what John Stuart Mill called the “tyranny of the majority”. It was that well founded political anxiety that led to dissent by two of the commissioners appointed by the Deputy Prime Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, and Professor Philippe Sands, whose distrust of the Tea Party tendency in the current Conservative Party made them refuse to support a new Bill of Rights in the current Eurosceptic political climate. I fully respect their view.

I set out my own position in a separate note in the report at pages 231-33. My position—and I believe that of commissioner Sir David Edward, the distinguished former judge of the European Court of Justice—is that we favour carefully considered constitutional reform if, but only if, it strengthens rather than weakens effective protection, and if, but only if, the UK remains bound by the convention and the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. Every one of the 47 member states has made the convention rights part of their domestic law.

Any move towards a UK Bill of Rights would need to be made carefully and sensitively after wide public consultation within each country of the United Kingdom and across the nation as a whole, in the context of the constitutional debate that is bound to occur, whatever the outcome of the Scottish independence referendum and the debates in Northern Ireland about whether additional protection is needed there.

The present Government have been no more capable of achieving coherent and ensuring constitutional reform than their predecessors, despite the reforms made under the Cook-Maclennan Labour-Liberal Democrat agreement, in which my noble friend Lord McNally and I took part. Opportunities have been botched, not just by this Government but by the Brown Government. However, whatever the outcome of the Scottish referendum, we will need to rethink devolution and whether, for example, it should be replaced by a federal system in which this House becomes an indirectly elected senate with some appointed members. If so, there would definitely be the need for a federal Bill of Rights to be read and given effect in accordance with our international and European legal obligations. There is also the long-standing pledge in the Belfast agreement to introduce an additional Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. It would be sensible to create a broad-based constitutional commission to clarify the options for the next Government, but only if it had the support of all three main political parties. That, regrettably, seems unlikely.

The elephant in the Chamber is of course the Strasbourg court. The European court and its judges are subject to constant unfair attacks, personal and political, by the Mail, the Telegraph and the Express, among others, which campaign to end what they call the “Human Rights Act farce”. They are commercially self-interested, because they wish to be free to invade personal privacy without the limits imposed by the convention. They do not acknowledge the way in which the Strasbourg court has strengthened the protection of freedom of speech and freedom of the press in this country. Examples of this include the cases of thalidomide, Goodwin, Tolstoy, Spycatcher, Max Mosley and the Mirror Group Newspapers case on unfair cost rules. Indeed, one of the main purposes of the Defamation Act 2013 that we recently passed is to make our archaic and oppressive libel law compatible with Article 10 of the convention, by striking a fair balance between free speech and the protection of good reputation. My noble friend Lord McNally of course gave superb leadership to accomplish that end.

The English print media attacks, supported by too many MPs who should know better, have included gross and offensive criticism of the distinguished former president of the Strasbourg court, Sir Nicolas Bratza. These attacks may be partly responsible for the absence of any senior British judicial candidates to replace him on the European court. Another factor may be the uncompetitive nature of the pension and other arrangements for British judges joining the Strasbourg court, moving family and home to Strasbourg only to face abuse from the media and politicians for their pains. The pension arrangements for new judges are significantly worse than for judges serving in the UK. I hope the Minister will confirm that this gap will be addressed for future appointments.

The fact that our senior judges will no longer serve on the Strasbourg court, and are unlikely to do so unless the Ministry of Justice introduces incentives, is very bad news for those of us who cherish our common-law system and want to promote its virtues within the European system. It is also bad news for those of us who are friends of the Strasbourg court. We are fortunate to have Judge Paul Mahoney on the court, but it is essential for his successor to be a powerful and experienced jurist with a thick skin.

I was in Strasbourg two weeks ago. Diplomats, judges and civil servants all told me of their profound mistrust of our Government and its real objectives, as the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Minister of Justice threaten no longer to accept the court and its judgments and to tear up the Human Rights Act. There is deep despair and a serious loss of British influence. Churchill, Macmillan and Maxwell-Fyfe, who led the European Movement and the creation of the convention system, would be appalled and ashamed at the way the tabloid press, swivel-eyed Tory Tea Partygoers and UKIP now call the tune. How can the UK claim to uphold the European rule of law when a former Lord Chancellor for whom I worked, the right honourable Jack Straw MP, boasts in his memoirs of refusing to give effect to the Strasbourg court’s judgment in the Hirst case? He and David Davies MP, then the shadow Home Secretary, went to Strasbourg to remonstrate with the court’s president, Sir Nicolas Bratza, about the court’s case law. I find that completely unacceptable.

The Minister of Justice also wears the robes of the Lord Chancellor. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, the great holder of that office in the Thatcher Government, has no doubt that the UK is in breach of its international legal duty to give effect to the Strasbourg court's judgment in Hirst. However, the right honourable Chris Grayling thinks the court has overreached itself and that Parliament must have the last word. He does not appear to be concerned about the effect of his approach in undermining our reputation as a rule-of-law country. Ministers have a duty to comply with international law and treaty obligations, as is made clear in the Ministerial Code, proclaimed by the Prime Minister when he took office in 2010. It states:

“Ministers of the Crown are expected to behave in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety … The Ministerial Code should be read alongside the Coalition agreement and the background of the overarching duty”—

I repeat, the overarching duty—

“on Ministers to comply with the law including international law and treaty obligations and to uphold the administration of justice and to protect the integrity of public life”.

Jonathan Fisher QC, a Conservative member of the commission, suggested last week in the Times that the Government should campaign to persuade the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to refer the UK’s refusal to implement the Hirst judgment back to the European court, because the court has exceeded its jurisdiction. There would be no sympathy at all for that idea. No doubt, in a bid for the support of the media and English nationalist voters, the next Conservative manifesto will promise a British Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act and the role of the Strasbourg court. I hope and believe that the British people will reject that proposal when they realise that it would weaken protection against the misuse of state power. It would certainly be rejected in the Celtic nations of the UK.

Whatever the outcome of the Scottish referendum, the next Government will need to review our constitutional system. The celebration of Magna Carta in June 2015 might be the occasion. A future coalition not beholden to UKIP should seek to strengthen the Strasbourg court. We need new arrangements to ensure that British judges may be seconded without being worse off financially. The system of election of Strasbourg judges needs to be reformed, as was promised in the Brighton declaration. There are other practical proposals that also need to be implemented. The court does not have enough funds to clear the backlog. The registrar of the court has written to the Committee of Ministers pointing out the problems that need to be addressed.

Ministers need to rebut the myth that the Strasbourg court is a “foreign” court and constantly overturns the decisions of the UK courts. In 2012, of more than 2,000 UK applications decided by the court, only 12 resulted in a finding of a violation. The present politically divided coalition Government, which is also divided on this issue, are unlikely to address these issues effectively. We must hope that the next Government will use the ideas in the commission's report to strengthen the effective protection of human rights at home and across the European space, for the sake of the peoples of our nations. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, particularly, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Lester, for securing the debate and for attracting a stellar cast to speak, even rather late on a Thursday afternoon in the middle of June. I am certainly not one of those stars. I have comparatively little history, either as lawyer or politician, with regard to the Human Rights Act or the convention. However, it is an honour for me to speak from the opposition Front Bench on this occasion and I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Lester, for his well deserved reputation, mentioned by many noble Lords, in this field.

I start with a quotation from another memorable debate in your Lordships’ House, held exactly 25 months ago on 19 May 2011, when my noble and learned friend Lord Irvine of Lairg led a debate on the ECHR, with many of the same cast as today, and answered, as today, by the noble Lord, Lord McNally. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, ended his contribution with these words:

“I consider the Human Rights Act 1998 to be the outstanding piece of legislation of the previous Labour Government”.

He went on to say, and we must give him allowance for this,

“next to the Government of Wales Act 1998. I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, not simply on introducing the debate but on being the architect of an important piece in the structure of justice in our country”.—[Official Report, 19/5/11; col. 1501.]

That was a generous but well merited comment from the noble Lord, and a well merited compliment to my noble and learned friend as well.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Charter 88, many of the aspirations of which were adopted by my party in the early 1990s and then put into effect by the Government from 1997 on. Who says that pressure groups cannot achieve results? According to Professor Bogdanor the constitutional achievements of the Labour Government, ranging from the Human Rights Act to devolution, freedom of information, the creation of the Supreme Court, and much more, represent a formidable list. He may go too far when he says that it was an era of constitutional reform comparable to that of the years of the Great Reform Act 1832 or the Parliament Act 1911. However, even more impressive is the amount of power that was given away by some of these measures by that Labour Government. For example, the Human Rights Act gave power to individuals, the national states were given power by devolution and the judiciary was given power by the difference between the role of the Lord Chief Justice and that of the Lord Chancellor and by the creation of the Supreme Court. Professor Bogdanor went on to say that no British Government since World War II had dispersed power to the same extent.

Speaking from the Opposition Front Bench, I am proud of that record. It made our country a fairer, more open and better place to live. We were supported in all this—certainly for the most part—both in argument and votes by the Minister’s party, the Liberal Democrats. Both party manifestos for the 2010 general election talked about support for the Human Rights Act; the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto talked about protecting the Human Rights Act. It is therefore hardly surprising that when the Liberal Democrats found themselves in a coalition Government they had to think hard and quickly about how to prevent the Human Rights Act and the ECHR behind it being savaged by their coalition partner during the course of this Parliament.

Make no mistake: both before 2010 and since being in power, of course not all Conservatives but many of their leaders have regularly and systematically tried to trash both the convention and the Human Rights Act. They have often used language—perhaps sometimes to placate their anti-European supporters—that has sometimes, though not always, been a disgrace to a great party.

Rather unusually for me, I will pay a compliment to Liberal Democrat Ministers in this Government, and not least—in fact, probably for the most part—to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for the manner in which he, along with others, has successfully prevented the Conservatives from carrying out constitutional mayhem during this Parliament. I do not know whose idea a commission on the Bill of Rights originally was, and who put together the personnel. However, if the aim was to kick these proposals deep into the long grass, it appears to have succeeded.

I pay tribute to all members and staff of the commission, particularly its chairman, for giving up so much of their valuable time to its work. Many of its members were busy and distinguished Queen’s Counsel, while others had other important obligations. They deserve our thanks; not least the chairman, who has already been described in Job-like terms and whose distinguished career in public service must have helped him in an almost impossible task. However—and I suspect that the House might have expected a “however” at this stage—it is surely fair to ask whether it was really worth all the time and effort to produce two large volumes of a report in effect to solve a political problem?

Where do the various and myriad conclusions lead us? What is the value of the so-called majority view, when it includes a number who clearly and honestly objected to the terms of reference and want us to be free of the convention? I admit that I do not completely understand the position of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, who is himself one of the architects of the Human Rights Act. When reading the 31—

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. I wonder whether he agrees that it is core Labour Party policy since 1993 that a Human Rights Act is the first step, and a Bill of Rights the second. That was agreed by Labour in 1993, and as far as I am aware it is still Labour Party policy.

[Lord Bach]

As I understand it, the Human Rights Act is considered by some to be a British Bill of Rights in any event. However, I do not want to take issue with the noble Lord. I am here to praise him rather than criticise him. As I was going to say, when reading the 31 pages of the overview of volume 1, one can almost physically feel the strain in the language as it attempts desperately to find consensus where there is none. The majority view has been described as representing,

“a fragile coalition of views united around conceptions of a domestic Bill of Rights so different from one another as to render any consensus wholly illusory”.

These are the words of Mark Elliott, a reader in politics at the University of Cambridge, whose article is entitled, A Damp Squib in the Long Grass. This is perhaps a little harsh, but I think one senses what he is getting at. No wonder Professor Fenwick at the University of Durham described the document, perhaps rather generously, as “odd”. For me, the paper In Defence of Rights, by my noble friend Lady Kennedy and Professor Sands, is more persuasive. It destroys the confused majority view with a pretty well argued, moderate and sensible position.

The commission report has of course effectively stymied any change until after the 2015 general election. It is only when we know the result of that election and what will follow from it that we can realistically move forward. I would expect the Liberal Democrats to be every bit as robust in their defence of the Human Rights Act as I hope my party will also be.

I want to end on a perhaps rather less consensual note. I am afraid that the Liberal Democrats’ effective defence of the Human Rights Act and the convention is in marked contrast to the feebleness and lack of concern for the individual citizen evident in their acquiescence to—and sometimes even welcome for—some of the more reactionary measures that Her Majesty’s Government have recently taken. I of course refer to the restrictions either passed or proposed on judicial review, the no-win no-fee policy, and the position that private firms doing public work on public contracts may be exempt from freedom of information. Above all, I must say, it is evident in the decimation of social welfare law by taking it outside the scope of legal aid. It is no answer to say that citizens are still able in theory to go to law, because the reality is that without free legal advice, the poor and the marginalised in practice cannot go to law. Human rights exist outside the Human Rights Act. By limiting and restricting the ability of the citizen to take on the state, the Liberal Democrats are colluding in particularly anti-liberal acts.

I conclude by saying to the Minister that he has nobly protected the Human Rights Act in very difficult circumstances and that his part of the Government deserves great credit for that. Now is the time to protect the interests of individual citizens who need to take on the state. They, too, like those protected by the Human Rights Act, are an essential part of those who live in a free society.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

My Lords, it is customary to thank all speakers who have taken part in a debate of this kind. I must say that I found this a most remarkable debate that will be read abroad as well as in this country. It will be remembered, I am sure, in the future, as will the report of this commission.

For me, one of the most ingenious excuses for arriving late, on which I congratulate the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, was that it did not matter because he knew exactly what I was going to say as he had heard it all before. Alas, that is probably true. I worked for 30 years to accomplish the Human Rights Act and I am hardly likely to be one of those who would advocate tearing it up.

However, I will ask the conservatives, with a small “c”, in this debate—which was most noble Lords, I think, except the noble Lord, Lord Judd—to think about one thing. We are the only country, among the 47, that uses a European treaty rather than a domestic constitutional instrument to protect our basic rights and freedoms. For us the question is, is something incompatible with the European treaty? For the rest of Europe and most of the Commonwealth, the question is, is this incompatible with our constitutional rights? The question that the report poses, and that has been debated this afternoon, is whether we command more public confidence by relying on the European treaty, or whether, as the Labour Party agreed in 1993, the first step should be incorporating the convention by statute, but that that should be followed by the second step of a constitutional instrument? As I think everyone has said, that question can only be answered after the Scottish referendum. I hope that in June 2015, two years from now, when we mark the anniversary of Magna Carta and its Scottish equivalent, we will strive to ensure that it will be an occasion to celebrate what has been achieved and to build on those achievements, not to weaken them. I am grateful to all noble Lords.

Motion agreed.