May calls for UK to withdraw from European Convention on Human Rights

The Home Secretary, Theresa May, has said the UK should withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.

While Ms May favours Britain’s continued membership of the European Union she made clear that she thinks the UK should no longer be subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights, “that delayed for years the extradition of Abu Hamza, almost stopped the deportation of Abu Qatada and tried to tell Parliament that however we voted, we could not deprive prisoners of the vote.”

In a speech today, she said: “The ECHR can bind the hands of parliament, adds nothing to our prosperity, makes us less secure by preventing the deportation of dangerous foreign nationals and does nothing to change the attitudes of governments like Russia’s when it comes to human rights.

“So, regardless of the EU referendum, my view is this: if we want to reform human rights laws in this country, it isn’t the EU we should leave, but the ECHR and the jurisdiction of its court.”

The Home Secretary went on to pre-empt calls she is “against human rights”, adding: “But human rights were not invented in 1950 when the Convention was drafted, or in 1998 when the Convention was incorporated into our law through the Human Rights Act.

“This is Great Britain, the country of Magna Carta, parliamentary democracy and the fairest courts in the world. And we can protect human rights ourselves in a way that doesn’t jeopardise national security or bind the hands of Parliament.

“A true British bill of rights, decided by parliament and amended by Parliament, would protect not only the rights set out in the Convention, but could include traditional British rights not protected by the ECHR such as the right to trial by jury.”

Ms May has gone further than the Conservative manifesto which said the party would “break the formal link between British courts and the European Court of Human Rights”, but would not actually withdraw from the Convention.

Professor Stephen Tierney, director of the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law told Scottish Legal News, however, that an attempt to withdraw from the ECHR faces “at least three significant practical impediments”.

He said: “It is likely that this would be considered by the European Union to be incompatible with EU membership. Secondly, obligations under the Convention are so embedded within each of the devolution settlements - in Northern Ireland’s case this involves an international agreement between the UK and the Republic of Ireland - that efforts to remove its influence over devolved parliaments would almost certainly, by convention, require the consent of each.

“And, thirdly, common law jurisprudence in England and Scotland has, in the past two decades, adopted much of the language and approach taken by the European Court.”

As a consequence of this, Professor Tierney added that the “European standards” could survive withdrawal.

“The alternative option proposed by the UK government – a British Bill of Rights – could therefore result in the domestic judiciary continuing to apply European standards through the filter of the common law in a way that leads to similar, if not stronger, civil liberties protections than those offered by Strasbourg,” he said.