The Human Rights Commission....

19 December 2012

..was a complete waste of time.   It was basically just a way for the LimpDems to kick the serious issue of the disgraceful Human Rights Act into the 'long grass'.  This commission that wasted £700,000 was not even allowed to include the European Convention in its deliberations.

But there is one good thing that comes our of this.

This is an issue that could be a vote winner for the Conservatives as part of an 'unfinished business' manifesto.  A stick to beat the LimpDems and Labour with.  Labour because they brought about this appalling Act in the first place and the LimpDems for blocking reform.  But to do this Cameron will need to adopt a clear policy that frees us from the Convention and gets rid of the HRA.

Chris Grayling (above) the Justice Secretary should lead on the policy development, he is 'sound' on the matter and is the right person take charge.  Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General, is a liability though and will need to be sacked from that post to get progress on this.

• Guest 710 wrote:
  "... It was no secret that the Liberal Democrats and many senior Conservative lawyers, including the then lord chancellor Kenneth Clarke and the attorney general Dominic Grieve, wanted to preserve both the UK's ratification of the convention and the act of 1999. As a result the commission's terms of reference were tightly drawn so that its proposals had to incorporate and build on the rights in the convention, and to continue to be enshrined in UK law.
  
  In such circumstances, something had to give. Tory yearnings to abandon the European convention – and, in some cases, scrap human rights laws too – were simply incompatible with the commission's terms of reference and with the evolving status of international human rights law and treaty. The result, as Tuesday's report makes clear, is that the wheels have come off the British bill of rights project.
  
  The commission has splintered along many different lines. But the big picture, underscored by the minority report by Helena Kennedy and Philippe Sands, is this. The British bill of rights craved by the anti-European Tory right is an English nationalistic fantasy. It cannot exist in the constitutional framework of the existing UK without destroying other established principles. It would cut the UK adrift from internationally justiciable human rights on the one hand, as three commission members openly advocate; and it would force a confrontation with the devolution settlement in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the other..."
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/18/constitutional-reform-britains-bill-wrongs
  
  It looks as if the Conservatives will have to follow Labour and become the New-Conservatives. Ditching any and all association with 'one nation' along the way...oh wait a minute, might it not be best just to vote UKIP and swap Dave for Nigel?
• Guest 655 wrote:
  mmm no surprise from the Guardian and those obnoxious lefty lawyers Kennedy and Sands. Utter tosh to put it as politely as possible.
• Guest 710 wrote:
  As "those obnoxious lefty lawyers Kennedy and Sands" were the only dissenters from the report Barry, I take it that the report was exactly what you had looked for?
  " ...the commission's terms of reference were tightly drawn so that its proposals had to incorporate and build on the rights in the convention, and to continue to be enshrined in UK law."
  I wonder what your beloved David Davis has to say about all of this?
• Guest 655 wrote:
  Not quite Tom...
  
  More reading up for you on the subject.
  
  http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2012/12/improve-human-rights-by-quitting-strasbourg-court-tory-bill-of-rights-advisers-argue/
  
  http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2012/12/how-radical-can-the-conservatives-be-on-the-european-court/
• Guest 710 wrote:
  I have read the second of the links Barry, the issue of the first link was dealt with in the Guardian Editorial I gave.
  Let us face it. It is not the Lib-Dems that have made this report what it is, many Tories too clamoured to set the boundaries of the Commission. What sort of Party will be left if they all are to be got rid of?
  Why folk persist in wasting breath on asserting what they imagine to have been in the minds of those who set up the ECHR, perhaps they simply do not have anything worthwhile else to say.
  This is one issue too many for your Party to present to the voters in their next Manifesto, although I must admit that I am all for prisoners having the vote. Perhaps your drive is to take us all back to the 19th century in order for us to catch up with the Conservative Party, who seem stuck there.
• Guest 696 wrote:
  Barry, I doubt the Conservatives will ever have a chance again to govern. Can't see that many people voting for them another time round.
• Guest 655 wrote:
  In your imagination again Alexander. Carry on thinking that if it keeps you happy. Its Christmas after all....