A LEGISLATION’S WATERLOO? THE FUTURE OF THE UK’S HUMAN RIGHTS ACT (1998), THE POSSIBLE END OF AN ERA AND THE PROSPECT OF A HOMEGROWN BILL OF RIGHTS

Abstract

Before the passing of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA), fundamental human rights in UK courts were enforced using fundamental common law rights. The enactment of the HRA which focused mostly on Convention rights displaced that movement to a certain uncomfortable degree as evidenced in the cases bothering on national security decided post HRA especially after 9/11. Strasbourg’s decision on prisoner voting rights and court-imposed constraints on the power of ministers to deport non-nationals are examples of judicial constraints on the UK that gave rise to the idea that the current human rights law favour “bad people. Little wonder then that sharp critics of the HRA have been calling for its replacement by a new ‘Bill of Rights’ which will better reflect ‘British values,’ clearly set out how to interpret legislation and shore up the sovereignty of elected law makers in Parliament. This paper, therefore, examines the HRA’s overreach, the reasons for the public outcry against it and the clarion call for a British ‘Bill of Rights.’ It concludes by concurring that the HRA has outlived its usefulness and that a new ‘homegrown’ UK human rights scheme which will be more representative and more widely acceptable is long overdue.