Tag Archives: European Convention on Human Rights

Doing the rights thing

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​So many nationalists talk about how great UK is. They cite our history, particularly 20th century history and the post-war society they grew up in. And I agree – for all its faults, post-WW2 UK hasn’t been a bad place to grow up in.

Our emphasis on justice, compassion, tolerance and human rights has created a pretty cool place to live. We have education, health care, protection for workers, unemployed people and the sick and disabled. We have a reasonable justice system without barbarity and access to legal remedy for all. It’s true that  recent ideologically driven austerity measures have definitely impacted negatively on most of these advantages. None the less most UK adults today grew up with a working set of rights and safeguards before recent governments began trying to remove them.

What seems odd to me is the way that, whilst extolling our nation’s virtues, these nationalists often want to remove the emphasis on rights, tolerance, representative democracy and justice that made modern UK society so good in the first place.

Why is that? I think it’s probably because they don’t quite get the reality of Human Rights and what they’re in place to achieve. For years now the media and certain politicians have distorted the public’s perception of human rights with a parade of half-truths and downright deceptions.

My solution is to develop a training pack, primarily for care workers but actually relevant across society to help show people what’s at stake as the UK prepares to leave the EU. There is a lot of talk about scrapping our human rights. I think we need to be very, very clear about just what that means – and about what we want to come next. Knowledge is power!

Please get in touch if you have any suggestions for topics to include, FAQs to prepare for or any other questions or comments about this new project.

Many thanks.

Stuart

The Convention 19: The future

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The European Convention on Human Rights is not, as we have seen, universally popular in Britain. Neither is the UK’s Human Rights Act (1998). Not everyone agrees that these rights should be in place for everyone. Some argue that it is foolish to give the same rights to foreigners or to criminals and many within the current coalition government are vehemently opposed to any European legislation affecting what goes on within these shores.
I first wrote this in June 2011 – sadly government hostility to the ECHR remains just as strong two and a half years later.

From my perspective these arguments are all rooted in what is known as ‘special pleading’. The idea is that some people are somehow ‘special’ or more deserving of rights and consideration than others. As is probably clear by now I see things a little differently – and I hope that you will too.

I believe that history (including some very recent history throughout Europe) has shown us that none of us are really safe from the abuses of those who would exploit or abuse us. The International Court has issued a warrant just this week for the arrest of the Libyan leader ‘Colonel Gadaffi’ on charges of war crimes. Libya, of course is not a European state but the former Yugoslavia was and it’s hard to forget the religiously motivated ethnic cleansing that happened there in recent years.
Less extreme is the way that our current government portrays disabled people (especially those with mental disorders) as ‘benefit scroungers’. The discrimination that seems to be inherent both in the benefits system and the wider job market against people with mental ill health combines to prevent them from finding work and then to penalise and vilify them for their failure to do so.

Hate crime is on the increase in our country, presumably as a reaction to economic austerity (that seems to happen whenever people’s livelihoods are threatened) and intolerance of all kinds seems gradually to be becoming more widespread and socially acceptable. Perhaps now, more than ever before, we need the ECHR to keep the UK ‘on track’ as a civilised country.

The assault on prisoners’ rights and their proposed disenfranchisement (as though losing their liberty wasn’t punishment enough) is worrying, but not so worrying as the increasing calls for a return to capital punishment. There has even been some limited support in this country for an American organisation called ‘Project Prevention’. This ‘charity’ aims to sterilise substance users, as much upon moral and economic grounds as upon any platform of compassion.

It is interesting that Vince Cable MP, a current UK government minister threatened earlier this month that the law prohibiting strike action may be ‘tightened’ to prevent aggrieved workers from taking action to protect their interests. However many argue that without the ability to withdraw their labour workers have no effective means of asserting their rights. It will be interesting to see if workers’ industrial safeguards are removed as Cable threatened and if so whether or not the new restrictions are challenged under article 4.

However that turns out in the future it is already the case that a good deal of our UK employment law is based upon ensuring that working conditions are reasonable and do not become so exploitative that they fall foul of article 4. It is Europe that gave us limits to the amount of overtime we can be forced to work and the national minimum wage (also unpopular with the current government) is based as much on article 4 principles as it is upon anything else. This article, along with article 14 which outlaws discrimination, has also done much to assist minority groups such as women or disabled people to achieve both employment and comparable pay and conditions.

In my own field of health and social care it is amazing how many hard working people are barely able to make ends meet as they exist on minimum wage, regardless of how difficult, exhausting and sometimes dangerous their work may be. Without a strong legal framework to protect them how much more exploitative would their working conditions be? As I write this I’m aware that a private members bill aimed at removing the minimum wage itself has recently been tabled in parliament by a coalition MP.

I don’t know what the future holds for UK but I do know this. Without the ECHR it would be far easier for exploitative and abusive people, especially those in positions of power and authority, to walk roughshod over the rights of citizens who already are struggling to survive in this tough economic climate.
Whatever generalised, unrepresentative illustrations cynical politicians may make about illegal immigrants or ‘loony lefties’ please remember that for most of us – and that almost certainly includes you, the reader – life would be far less secure and a great deal more difficult without the ECHR.

Thankyou for reading this.

Stuart Sorensen (June 2011)

About ‘The Convention’

This series of posts first appeared on Stuart’s blog in June 2011. It is not intended to be a comprehensive or even particularly authoritative reference guide to the ECHR. Rather it is a brief introduction to a much larger and infinitely more fascinating subject. You can download the entire series in PDF format here: https://stuartsorensen.wordpress.com/amj-freebies-downloads-and-services/

The Convention 10: The right to privacy

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Almost every day the British press runs a story decrying the European Convention on Human rights and article 8, the right to private and family life, is a favourite target. Here’s a classic example from The Mail online.

The main focus of this article is crime and deportation, a small part of article 8’s emphasis. There are many more aspects of the ECHR that the tabloid press could comment on but, not surprisingly article 8 is the one that is attacked most often – at least so far as I can tell. That’s hardly surprising. After all article 8, the right to privacy, is the biggest thorn in their sides. Let’s look at an example or two…

In 2008 Max Mosley, president of the ‘Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile’, challenged the News of The World in the High Court after they published private videos of his involvement in sexual acts. The case which was based upon Mosley’s article 8 rights cost the newspaper £60,000 in damages.

The News of the World has been involved in a series of court cases, investigations and pay-offs since 2006 when the now infamous telephone tapping scandal first broke. Even now, five years later the case still hasn’t gone away and Scotland Yard launched ‘Operation Weeting’ last January to further investigate the phone tapping allegations.

New Scotland YardBut it’s not only newspapers that fall foul of article 8. In 1978/9 The Metropolitain Police tapped Mr. James Malone’s telephone. He was unaware of this and also the ‘metering’ of his phone which meant a record was kept of every other telephone number he connected to. When this became clear Mr. Malone took his case through the UK courts but the dispute was not resolved and so it was referred to the European Court of Human Rights. The judgement recorded in 1984 went against the police and against UK – not because Mr. Malone should not have been investigated but because there were no adequate safeguards in place to ensure the monitoring was reasonable, proportionate and legal. The result was the Interception of Communications Act 1985.

It is still possible and legal to monitor a person’s communications but since 1985 UK law has demanded that it is only done in keeping with article 8 conditions. To put it another way interference with privacy and family life must be necessary and proportionate (not using a hammer to crack a nut) and intended to:

• protect national security
• protect public safety
• protect the economy
• protect health or morals
• prevent disorder or crime
• protect the rights and freedoms of other people.

A more recent case involving privacy within family life was that of Smith & Grady v UK (1999). These two women were discharged from the British armed forces because of their homosexuality. The European Court did not agree that their private sexuality had anything to do with national security, public safety, the economy, public morals, crime and disorder or the freedoms of others. The court further ruled that any fears and prejudices based upon their presence in the military were both unreasonable and unwarranted. The following years the UK Armed Forces Code of Social conduct was revised to remove such unwarranted prejudice against homosexuality.
Article 8 is a bit bigger than tabloid articles about deportation suggest, isn’t it?

In health and social care article 8 was significant in the Bournewood case (HL vs UK) which led to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the Neary case in which the High Court ruled only a few days ago against Hillingdon Council. Family life can include contact with significant others, the right to refuse entry into property, and the right for your confidential communications to stay that way. These rights are serious and cannot be interfered with by anyone without good reason. Funnily enough the European court is unlikely to consider headline gossip about someone’s sex life to be a proportionate way to protect public safety or health, national security, the economy or anything else.

Perhaps that’s why the tabloids focus upon immigration so much – it’s less obvious than attacking the right to privacy directly.

About ‘The Convention’

This series of posts first appeared on Stuart’s blog in June 2011. It is not intended to be a comprehensive or even particularly authoritative reference guide to the ECHR. Rather it is a brief introduction to a much larger and infinitely more fascinating subject. You can download the entire series in PDF format here: https://stuartsorensen.wordpress.com/amj-freebies-downloads-and-services/