When the HRA was passed in 1998, few could have imagined its impact on UK Politics. It seemed to merely confirm the rights that had already existed - those written into the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Yet in giving UK citizens to the right to use UK courts to seek redress of grievance, legal avenues to claim rights came closer to the people. No longer would they have to travel to Strasbourg to fight for their rights in the European Court of Human Rights (although they still could), the guarantor of the ECHR. Yet the backlash against a so-called rights culture has been severe. Successive Conservative governments have promised to either scrap or “update”, to replace it with a bill of rights or kill it altogether. Despite the assault on the HRA, it remains in place, for now.

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