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UPDATE
Chapter 4, 4.12 The Future
This concerns the update of July 2022.
THE BILL OF RIGHTS BILL HAS BEEN WITHDRAWN
At her first Cabinet meeting, September 2022, it is reported that the Truss government will not be proceeding with the Bill of Rights Bill. It follows, therefore, that the update of July 2022 no longer applies.
The reasons for the new government’s decision not to proceed seem to be, first, a matter of raw politics. Dominic Raab, the proposer of the Bill with a very personal commitment to it, supported Richie Sunak in the election for Conservative Party leadership. Liz Truss has removed most of Sunak supporters from government, including Raab.
Secondly, there was real concern at the drafting of the Bill. There were phrases in it which seemed to be of very uncertain scope, and which would have been difficult for judges to apply and had the danger of drawing them into political controversies.
There are no clear plans for replacement, though reform of human rights law was a manifesto commitment. It may be that reform, if any, will be modest. The return of Robert Buckland QC to the Cabinet (he commissioned the Gross Report on the workings of the HRA, see Update of March 2022) might indicate an intention for modest reform; on the other hand there are people in the Cabinet, particularly the new Home Secretary (Suella Braverman) who have publicly supported withdrawal from the ECHR. Human rights law, however, is supervised by the Department of Justice. The new Secretary of State is Brandon Lewis who, when Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, seemed to accept a ‘specific and limited’ breach of international law as acceptable in the context of the NI Protocol (a position he did not sustain).
So, it is very much a matter of ‘watch this space’.
Chapters 4 and 5 on the Human Rights Act retain their validity for the foreseeable future.