Category: Human Rights Act 1998
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Christian Magaard: Reconciling the Proactive Principle of Legality with Parliamentary Sovereignty
*Editors’ note: This post is part of a series on ‘The Human Rights Act After 22 Years’, following the SLS Annual Seminar held in November 2022. You can read the first post in the series here. Rising like an arguably rather dark phoenix from the ashes, the Bill of Rights Bill now appears back on the legislative agenda. Yet…
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Shona Wilson Stark: Section 4 of the Human Rights Act 1998: Still Standing, or Standing Still?
*Editors’ note: this post is part of a series on ‘The Human Rights Act After 22 Years’, following the SLS Annual Seminar held in November 2022. You can read the first post in the series here.* In previous work, I have criticised the courts’ apparent confusion and/or uneasiness with the making of declarations of incompatibility under section 4 of…
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Frederick Cowell: The Three Eras of Opposition to the Human Rights Act
*Editors’ note: this post is part of a series on ‘The Human Rights Act After 22 Years’, following the SLS Annual Seminar held in November 2022. You can read the first post in the series here.* Before it entered the statute books, before it even had been brought to Parliament, the Human Rights Act (HRA) was subject to opposition…
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Brice Dickson: The HRA and Legacy Issues in Northern Ireland
*Editors’ note: This post is part of a series on ‘The Human Rights Act After 22 Years’, following the SLS Annual Seminar held in November 2022. You can read the first post in the series here. Generally speaking, the Human Rights Act (HRA) has played a marvellous role in helping the Northern Ireland peace process to…
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Merris Amos: The place of human rights in the Constitution of the United Kingdom
Recently I have had the great pleasure of convening the SLS Annual Seminar – The Human Rights Act After 22 Years. Rather than formal papers, and yet another edited collection, it was agreed that following the event we would try to capture the contributions in a series of blog posts for the UKCLA Blog. Having…
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Michael Foran: Interpretation after the Human Rights Act? The Principle of Legality and the Rule of Law
Last week Liz Truss’s cabinet decided to shelve the proposed British Bill of Rights. Quite a lot has been said about the Bill since it was announced and many have welcomed the quiet demise of what was perceived by some to be a dangerous inroad into our human rights protection. Others have suggested that the…
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Guy Baldwin: The Proposed Bill of Rights and Constitutionalism in the UK
On an orthodox approach, legislation of the UK Parliament is interpreted by courts, but not reviewed by them against legal standards. The Human Rights Act 1998 enables such review and empowers courts to declare Acts of Parliament in contravention of those standards. In so doing, it advances constitutionalism, in the sense of there being legal…
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Daniella Lock: Three Ways the Bill of Rights Bill Undermines UK Sovereignty
The Bill of Rights Bill is framed by the Government as necessary to ensure ‘meaningful democratic oversight’ of human rights protection in the UK, with Conservative MPs keen to present the Bill as a means to restore sovereignty in the face of interfering judges – both at the level of the European Court of Human…
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Tetyana Krupiy: The Modern Bill of Rights creates barriers to challenging algorithmic decisions
Challenging inaccurate decisions of public authorities which fundamentally impact the life of the British public, could soon be harder. The UK government plans to replace the Human Rights Act 1998 with a Modern Bill of Rights. Its package of law reform proposals will make it very hard, and in some cases impossible, for individuals to challenge decisions…
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Lewis Graham: The Reed Court by Numbers: How Shallow is the ‘Shallow End’?
In a recent critical essay for the London Review of Books, Conor Gearty penned a wonderful, if provocative, account of the recent output of the UK Supreme Court, and attributed a substantial amount of influence to its President, Lord Reed. His “commitment to formalism”, said Gearty, has led to a series of decisions which shrink…