HUMAN RIGHTS ACT 1998

Human Rights Act 1998

Human Rights Act 1998

Introduction

The United Kingdom ratified the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR). However, its effectiveness depends mainly on the extent of its implementation by the courts. Thus, the incorporation of the latter into the national legal order has led to the recognition of a right of individual petition before the domestic courts, enabling any convictions in the European Court of Human Rights. 

The ECHR was largely inspired during the development of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948 in Paris. The latter sets out the fundamental rights of the individual, their recognition and their compliance with the law. However, with no real legal value as such, this text has only declaratory. The ECHR has meanwhile been adopted by the Council of Europe in 1950 and entered into force in 1953, having been ratified by ten states. It is one of the models guarantee international protection of human rights the most recognized and most efficient in the world (Harvey, 2005, pp. 121-29).

Pollack (2009, pp. 409-15) also notes in respect of hate crime, variations in police enforcement, illustrating the observation that the law-in-theory (Jenness and Grattet, 2005, pp. 337-59) can prove insufficient to achieve the aims of policy-makers. The following examples invite a critique of the degree to which legal rules can achieve cultural change. Such evidence suggests that, in respect of counteracting discrimination and promoting social change, sustained examination is needed at three levels-the law-in-theory (what legal rules are (not) made), the law-in-between (how governmental and non-governmental agencies translate legal rules into organizational procedures), and the law-in-practice (how practitioners implement the legal rules in their day-to-day work).

Discussion

Almost all European countries have signed the European Convention but have variously incorporated its civil and political rights into national legislation. The Human Rights Act 1998 has integrated the ECHR into UK law. However, the UK government has, to date, resisted advocacy that the UNCRC should also be so integrated. Others may decide to express human rights through cultural and religious traditions rather than legislation (Skegg, 2005, pp. 667-72). Still others resist using national legislation to accommodate or advance international declarations of human rights. Tang (2003, pp. 277-88) notes, for example, that both Norway and Canada have yet to incorporate the UNCRC into legislative systems despite a commitment to do so, perhaps partly because of fiscal constraints and opposition from family organizations. Canada and the UK have not made illegal all forms of corporal punishment of children, as required by the UNCRC and, arguably, also by the European Court of Human Rights which oversees how states observe the ECHR (A v UK [1998] 27 EHRR 611). Tang (2003) concludes, when analysing how Canada has taken forward the UNCRC, that the rights contained within it will remain soft until hardened by national legislation.

Declarations may be more honoured in the breach than the observance. The African Charter aims to eliminate all forms of discrimination and to ...