For all our sakes, don't scrap the Human Rights Act

Yesterday, Theresa May announced that the Conservatives would pledge to scrap the Human Rights Act (HRA) in their next election manifesto. This has popular support mainly because of one high-profile recent case, in which the deportation of Abu Qatada, a suspected terrorist, was delayed due to concerns about the use of torture in Jordan. This caused huge embarrassment for May (already red-faced after the cat debacle of 2011). But scrapping the HRA could be a disastrous response.

The HRA is the vehicle through which the European Convention on Human Rights is incorporated into British law. Opposition to it is grounded in the idea that it reduces our sovereignty—the British government was unable to deport Qatada, for example, because this action was blocked by the European Court. The Conservatives would take us out of the European Convention and replace the HRA with a British Bill of Rights.

To begin with, it is not clear how the Bill of Rights would differ from the HRA. The rights protected under the European Convention—the right to life, the prohibition of torture and slavery, the right to a fair trial—are presumably all rights that we would like to enjoy and to be included in the new bill. Calling it “British” instead of “European” does not change the content of the law, and it is not possible to include an exemption for “foreign criminals,” which is what many of the Convention's opponents would like. Whatever the flaws of the Qatada case, if I ever find myself facing deportation to a country that may torture me, based on evidence of a crime probably extracted by torture, I would like the law to be there to protect me. I'm glad that the UK would have to ensure that evidence obtained through torture would not be used against me before they could deport me.

But on top of that, there are good reasons why we might want an outside adjudicator to keep an eye on the behaviour of our government. For a claimant to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights, they must have exhausted the legal options in the UK. If their case has been rejected by the domestic courts right through to the highest level possible, but there are still grounds to argue that the case constitutes a violation of human rights, only then may the claimant appeal to the European Court.

This court of last resort has been responsible for some hugely important decisions. Cases that have been brought there include a pair of orphaned sisters who, in 2012, were forced into labour in France. Domestic law did not provide for adequate redress. Then there was the 14-year-old Polish rape victim who was taken in for police questioning after attempting to legally access an abortion, and the Roma woman in Slovakia who was sterilised without her informed consent. As for the UK, the Court prevented the use of the “five techniques” (including sleep and food deprivation) and of beating, which were used during Operation Demetrius (this operation involved the imprisonment, without trial, of hundreds of people suspected of being involved with the IRA, many of whom later turned out to be innocent).

Much of the British media is critical of the European Court. A Telegraph editorial earlier this year talked about the "'Rights' that make a mockery of our courts"—"In today’s newspaper," it read, "we report on yet another example of the 1998 Human Rights Act being exploited in a 'ludicrous' fashion by a foreign criminal determined to stay in this country." Another editorial talked about "repatriating liberties" from the Court.

The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday have campaigned against it ever since the debacle over Qatada began, as well as in response to issues such as the voting rights of prisoners. “A great day for British justice,” the Mail on Sunday headlined back in March when Theresa May announced the possibility of withdrawing from the European Convention. Yet the Mail supported the case of British Airways worker Nadia Eweida who was banned from wearing a crucifix at work until the European Court overturned the ruling, with the Mail describing her as “inspiring” and even as a “martyr”. The UK courts had ruled against Ms Eweida, claiming that BA had acted within the law, but when she took the case to Europe the decision was judged to constitute discrimination. The Mail applauded the judgement, as did David Cameron, who tweeted: “Delighted that the principle of wearing religious symbols at work has been upheld—people shouldn’t suffer discrimination due to religious beliefs.” But this is a principle that the UK’s own courts had failed to uphold, and would have continued to do so had Ms Eweida been unable to appeal to the European Court.

Aside from the fact that we cannot expect other countries to abide by their international obligations if we refuse to abide by ours, do the British people really want to sacrifice their access to a court of last resort? As for the Conservatives, it is no good saying that the Court sometimes makes us do things we don’t want to—that is the point of it, since a case can only go to the ECHR if British courts have ruled against the claimant; it allows us to hold the British courts to account. That is exactly why it is so important.