The Human Rights Act (HRA) is a piece of law, introduced in 1998, that guarantees human rights in Britain. It was introduced as one of the first major reforms of the last Labour government.

The Act covers all the rights included in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The ECHR is an agreement that all countries in Europe will respect human rights. It was drawn up in 1950 in the aftermath of the Second World War.

These rights are: the right to life, the right not to be tortured or subjected to inhumane treatment, the right not to be held as a slave, the right to liberty and security of the person, the right to a fair trial, the right not be retrospectively convicted for a crime, the right to a private and family life, the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, the right to freedom of expression, the right to freedom of assembly and association, the right to marriage, the right to an effective remedy, the right not to be discriminated against, the right to the peaceful enjoyment of one’s property, and the right to an education.

The HRA incorporates the rights of the ECHR into domestic British law. This means that if someone has a complaint under human rights law they do not have to go to a European court, but can get justice in a British court.

The HRA requires all public bodies, including institutions like the Police, NHS, and local councils to act in accordance with these human rights.

Why does the Government want to scrap it?

The Government has pledged to scrap the Human Rights Act, and replace it with a “British Bill of Rights”. It promises that its replacement will “remain faithful to the basic principles of human rights”, but has not provided any specific details yet.

In its manifesto they pledge ‘to stop terrorists and other serious foreign criminals who pose a threat to our society from using spurious human rights arguments to prevent deportation”.

In practice, This could mean that people who want to bring human right cases will have to go to a court in Strasbourg to be heard. This would significantly slow the cases down and make them more difficult to bring.

Will they be able to?

At the moment it is difficult to say whether the Government will be successful because the terms of the replacement are unknown.

There are rights which any Bill faithful to the “basic principles of human rights” would have to contain. freedom from torture, freedom of religion, freedom of expression and a right to a private and family life. It is difficult to think of any of the rights in the original European Convention that could be excluded.

It is also difficult to define what a “spurious human rights argument” would be. Abu Qatada was able to argue that he should not be deported to face trial, as he would face evidence obtained under torture. He would therefore be unable to obtain a fair trial. It is difficult to see how a Bill of Rights would alter those rights. And even if it did, he would have be still been able to apply to the European Court in Strasbourg (which is what happened).

There is heavy opposition to repealing the HRA and the English courts have spent a good part of the last decade developing law to protect citizens in the event of it being repealed. The Government has indicated that it will withdraw from the ECHR if it is unable to repeal the HRA., but this would not be straightforward. It would send a bad message to other countries and would be very difficult to pass through Parliament.