UK Law Articles
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The Times
September 26 2000
The Human Rights Act
The biggest shake-up in English laws for a century takes effect next week when the Human Rights Act 1998 comes into force. It is expected to prompt a revolution in the way decisions are made by Government and other public bodies; and in how cases are decided by judges, Frances Gibb writes.
The Act is a new building block in our constitution: it provides the first statement in statute of people's rights and obligations by enshrining the European Convention on Human Rights. It creates an over-
arching set of principles against which all laws and decisions will have to be judged. But what impact will it have in practice?
Last week Lord Irvine of Lairg, the Lord Chancellor, defended the Act as offering more "intensive protection of human rights for British citizens by British courts". And he criticised the "prophets" of doom who predicted that it would clog the courts and shift power to non-elected judges. Such "predictions of chaos" were more attractive in news terms than "a nice smooth progress towards a culture of greater respect for human rights".
He accepted that the Act would, like all new laws, have teething problems. But it would settle down as it had in Scotland, where the Act's principles are already in force and 98 per cent of claims have failed. People, he said, should be "grown-up" about the Act and accept the changes it would bring. Over time it would work as a "partnership between Government and judiciary" to deliver a culture of human rights. This partnership is at the Act's core. Judges will assume wide discretion to determine a host of ethical, social and political issues, becoming, in effect, the new high priests, deciding what rights are created and drawing the line between conflicting rights. Critics fear that it shifts power dangerously to the judges - it is they who will carve out a new right of privacy as cases come before the courts. Yet Parliament retains the upper hand: the courts cannot strike down laws in breach of human rights. Nor, Lord Irvine emphasised last week, will Parliament always comply with the courts' rulings.
A deluge of claims is predicted, at first. There is scope to appoint eight extra High Court judges and sittings of judicial review courts will double to 12 a day; £65 million is earmarked: £39 million for legal aid, £21 million for extra court hearings and £4.5 million to train judges and JPs.
But ministers and senior judges have put out a tough message that they will give short shrift to whacky claims. Most are expected to fail. So why the Act at all?
Lord Lester of Herne Hill, QC, who calls it the "cornerstone of our changing constitution", says it will make government bodies liable for breaches of human rights and give people effective remedies in our courts. Anne Owers, director of Justice, says its power will be in effecting a culture change. "People will alter the way they do things once they start looking through the prism of the Act." But critics' concerns are more with judicial power. They fear that the Act could politicise judges and lead to American-style scrutiny of their backgrounds and beliefs. In turn, there would be calls for an elected judiciary. Michael Howard, the former Home Secretary, sees the Act as a "profound weakening of our accountable democratic traditions". Social and political change will be judge-driven and lawyers the main beneficiaries.
Lawyers will certainly gain work. Chambers such as Blackstone, Doughty Street, One Pump Court and 4-5 Gray's Inn Square will compete with the newly formed Matrix. But that does not preclude benefits for the wider community, as Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, puts it. Either way, there is no dispute - in the words of the barrister Philip Havers - that "the legal landscape is about to change for ever".
