October 08, 2014

From Magna Carta to ECHR: do we need a British Bill of Rights?

1 hour 42 minutes

Next year marks 800 years since the signing

of Magna Carta. While the build-up to its anniversary has been dominated

by arguments about whether it should be taught in schools as part of

lessons on ‘British values’ aimed at tackling ‘Trojan Horse’ extremism,

others have strongly suggested Britain needs a contemporary equivalent.

Whilst the coalition’s Commission on a Bill of Rights produced

ambivalent conclusions, leading Conservative politicians have pledged

that it will be a key part of their general election manifesto. Yet

while the original brief for the Bill of Rights was for a document

‘which incorporates and builds on Britain’s obligations under the

European Convention on Human Rights’ such a move is widely seen as a

potential replacement for the Human Rights Act with Britain leaving the

ECHR altogether.

Supporters see a British Bill of Rights as an important move in

regaining control over key areas of national sovereignty, threatened by

increasingly activist judges based in Strasbourg. Many opponents,

including leading civil-liberties campaigners, charge the proposal as

being a return of Tories as ‘the nasty party’ keen on limiting

individual and worker protections enshrined under the Human Rights Act.

In any case, it is not clear what immediate gains a UK government would

make from leaving the ECHR, given the increasing willingness of British

courts to challenge government policies – for example, on workfare - and

the need to meet Western standards around universal human rights.

Some see the British Bill of Rights as an opportunity to rethink our

contemporary attitude to rights. Historically, many see a rights culture

as standing in a British tradition dating back to the Magna Carta of

1215 and embracing the 1688 Bill of Rights. Others see sharp

distinctions between the natural-rights tradition dating back to John

Locke and that which culminated in the French Declaration of the Rights

of Man in the wake of the French Revolution and the American Bill of

Rights of 1791. Is it significant that these documents that talk the

language of natural rights tend to seek freedom from the state whereas the human rights

tradition embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

and the European Convention on Human Rights (1950) tend to seek the

state’s protection?

Could a British Bill of Rights represent a more democratic

alternative to the ECHR, or simply greater powers for unelected judges

in Britain rather than their counterparts in Strasbourg? Does it

represent an opportunity to safeguard civil liberties and national

security, as various supporters hope, or risk sacrificing hard-won

rights to contemporary opportunist politicians? What advantages would it

hold over the existing framework provided by the Human Rights Act?

Would its introduction be a triumph for democracy or populism? Who

should we trust to make our laws?

Speakers

Jon Holbrook

barrister and writer on legal issues for spiked and the New Law Journal

Martin Howe QC

barrister; member, Commission on A Bill of Rights

Helen Mountfield QC

barrister, Matrix Chambers, London; trustee, Equal Rights Trust

Rupert Myers

barrister and writer

Adam Wagner

barrister, 1 Crown Office Row

Chair

Claire Fox

director, Institute of Ideas; panellist, BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze

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