The aim of this essay is to critically evaluate the statement 'The European Convention on Human Rights exists to guarantee legal protection to fundamental rights'. It will examine how rights are protected in law and the way the UK approaches the protection of these rights. Explanation will be made of the way that the UK addresses the implementation of the rights in the English legal system. Issues such as conflicting rights and legal limitations will also be considered. An evaluation will be made of whether or not The Human Rights Act 1998 protects the fundamental rights of UK citizens as contained in the European Convention on Human Rights.
Before the Human Rights Act 1998 was passed by parliament it had been considered unnecessary to incorporate the Convention directly into UK law as it was thought that the UK already provided adequate protection for its citizens. However, a number of infringements were identified and this eventually led to the start of the legislative process which resulted in the Human Rights Act 1998.
Arguments that were put forward for the incorporation of The European Convention on Human Rights into UK law were partly based on the costs and time considerations involved in taking cases before the European Court in Strasbourg. The Human Rights Act 1998 gave the citizens of the United Kingdom the right to bring proceedings for the infringement of these rights before the UK courts. Other lines of reasoning concluded that the incorporation would
Human Rights Act 1998 – is an Act that gives legal effect in the UK to certain fundamental rights and freedoms contained in
Human Rights Act 1998 - The Human Rights Act means that residents of the United Kingdom will now be able to seek help from the courts if they believe that their human rights have been infringed.
Human rights act 1998 – specifies and enforces the rights of individuals and if these
Alternatively some argue that the executive has too much power which threatens individual rights. Therefore some suggest that a codified constitution would help to safeguard citizen’s rights because at the moment Britain has adopted the European Convention on Human Rights by passing the Human Rights Act 1998, which is considered weak as it could be overridden by Parliament due to Parliamentary sovereignty. Furthermore the European Convention on Human rights is part of UK law however its terms are not determined in the UK, whereas a codified constitution would include a statement of rights in the UK which would be controlled domestically.
The Human Rights Act 1998 (also known as the Act or the HRA) came into force in the United Kingdom in October 2000. It is composed of a series of sections that have the effect of codifying the protections in the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. All public bodies (such as courts, police, local governments, hospitals, publicly funded schools, and others) and other bodies carrying out public functions have to comply with the Convention rights. The Human Rights Act protects individuals from torture (mental, physical or both), inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment and deportation or extradition (being sent to another country to face criminal charges) if there is a real risk that they will face
Human rights are the right that any individual is entitled under their government, and it can be provided in divergent forms. Thus in Australia, there are no set of ‘Bill of Rights’, comparable to many other western countries that share similar legal values and standards. The American ‘Bill of Rights’ states that the government ensures the freedom of speech and religion, protection from torture and punishment, and the fair procedures of law . There has always been a great debate on whether Australian government should acquire a constitutional Bill of Rights. I believe that it is not necessary to obtain a Bill of Rights as it is not necessary for Australian legal system, and further, it can bring confusion, greater debate and litigations. There are other forms of human rights law introduced into Australian legal system which sets boundaries for the government to respect individual rights. Consequently, it proves the unnecessity for a Bill of Rights in Australia.
However, the Hillsborough disaster occurred before the formation of the Human Rights Act 1998 and there is no definitive law that states if the UK must obliged with the laws of the convention . Nonetheless there are some legal routes concerning these issues which are laid out in cases or statutes. The very first of such case is that of Silih v Slovenia . In Silih v Slovenia it was stated that death which occurred before the critical date is not open-ended and can fall within the court’s temporal jurisdiction. There must also be a genuine relationship between the death and the entry of the convention in delight of the accused for the proceeding imposed by Article 2 to become effective. In addition, it was also stated that institution of procedural obligations determining the cause of death and holding those responsibility to account ought to have been carried out after the critical date .
In a world in which people have fundamental disagreements regarding the substance and purpose of human existence and what constitute ‘the good life’, it is a question how should human rights be installed within a nation’s legal system. This essay argues that because we cannot ascertain without doubt what human’s nature is, and in order to prevent atrocities as those in the Second World War: all humans should enjoy, as members of the human species, fundamental rights to secure their existence. Hence, within a nation’s legal system, those are known to be civil rights. Further, political rights should be ensured firstly to the citizens of that nation, but, due to the rapid globalization and the growing fluidity of boarders (for example in Europe)
Introduction: The human rights were created in 1948 as a result of the experience of the second world war. These human rights meant that everyone has equality. Or though these human rights were created as a law not everyone sticks to them and many people actually end up going completely against them. Since this happens many people take social actions to gain human rights back. Two of the most important in my opinion are the March on Washington and the Montgomery bus boycott.
The reform of the Human Rights Act can illustrate that the constitutional reform did not go far enough. In 1998, the Blair government announced that the citizens ' rights would be safeguarded and strengthened through incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. However, this created a problem as the UK now has two sets of rights – those built up under Common Law and those in the Human Rights Act. These two sets of rights may conflict and, in addition, cases can be taken using these rights to both the UK Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights (which is the supreme court for the European Convention on Human Rights). The UK judiciary is divided on how to resolve this issue.
The Human Rights Act (1998) consists of sixteen fundamental rights that everybody is entitled to from birth or since the act was put into place. These sixteen rights are set out as ‘Articles’ and along with these Articles there are also ‘Protocols’ to extend and adapt new rights into the Human Rights Act. There are three main effects of the HRA: Firstly, it has subsumed the rights set out by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into British national law; if in any given situation there is a breach of rights, this allows people to take their cases to British courts instead of seeking justice from the European Court of
In this essay I will explain how the United Kingdom’s (UK) membership in the European Union (EU) and how the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1988 (HRA) has diminished parliament's sovereignty. I do however make it clear that it is important to note that in theory the UK still holds some sovereignty over the EU and the European Convention of Human Rights (ECtHR) as in theory they can withdraw from both institutions. Also the pledged referendum to leave the EU and the possibility of a new Bill of Rights will affect the future of parliamentary sovereignty. A.V. Dicey’s explanation of Parliamentary Sovereignty is used as the foundation for discussion; Dicey outlines the traditional doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty which consist of three
The protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms is a moral stance shared by a significant part of our global society. In the European culture and thought, human rights have a long tradition: the notion of inalienable rights was conceived by the European enlightenment, shaped by the French revolution and first officially adopted by the Universal Declaration of Human rights by the United Nations in Paris, 1948. Since its foundation, human rights have always been a core principle of the European Union, expressed by documents such as the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000). The Treaty of Lisbon in 2009 has guaranteed the enforcement of the Charter of Fundamental Rights including six major categories: the right to
The ECJ has been accused of “not taking (human) rights seriously”. Assess the validity of this comment with reference to the ECJ’s evolving case law on fundamental human rights in European Union law.
The Role of General Principles in E.U. Law as Opaque and Uncertain Since the founding European Community Treaties of the 1950’s there has been a noticeable evolution in regards to the lack of provisions concerning the protection of human rights in the conduct of the Community affairs. Primarily this evolution was the work of The Court of Justice, who stated that “the ‘general principles of EC law’ include protection for fundamental rights which are part of the common constitutional traditions of Member States. ”[1] Article 249 of the EC treaty lays out the sources from which the Community may govern, with greatest emphasis being placed on regulations and directives.