Top judge backs human rights rethink
TORY plans to scrap the Human Rights Act were backed by a former lord chief justice yesterday.
In a boost to David Cameron, Lord Judge said he had “great reservations” about meddling by European judges in British affairs.
He said the Government’s move to replace the Act with a British Bill of Rights should not be “fudged”.
His remarks were seen as a significant intervention in the Westminster row.
A bill to scrap the Act and ensure that the European Court of Human Rights cannot overrule Parliament is expected to be announced in tomorrow’s Queen’s Speech.
Michael Gove, the Tory Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor, is braced for determined opposition from much of the judiciary.
But Lord Judge said Parliament should take a clear decision about the Strasbourg court’s role in British law. He said: “We have tended recently to fudge these questions.”
Lord Judge said the European Convention on Human Rights was rooted in English common law, and added: “Everything that is in the ECHR is there to be found in the common law: no torture, no arrest without reasonable suspicion.
“Should judges be entitled to make laws with which our Parliament disagrees?
“If so, should they be our own judges, British judges sitting in the Supreme Court, or should they be judges from Europe? I think… you can probably glean from me that I have great reservations.”
Lord Judge said the growing influence of the court in Strasbourg could be compared with the powerful Supreme Court in the US.
“It leads to rather strange results. I think that investing power in nine people, however distinguished, however wise, does not seem to me a sensible way for a democratic country to be making such decisions,” he said.
Signs of a growing Tory split over the Act emerged at the weekend.
An unidentified senior Government figure threatened to resign their position to vote against its bill.
They also predicted the Government will lose a Commons vote on the issue.
Other senior Tories including former defence secretary Liam Fox say a British bill of rights is needed to restore Parliament’s sovereignty.
FORMER lord chief justice Lord Judge has again spoken out about the Human Rights Act, saying that Parliament must make a decision over its future and adding: “We have tended recently to fudge these questions.”
The Human Rights Act is, he believes, one of the reasons why the European Court of Human Rights seems to hold such sway in the UK and means that foreign judges have more authority than our own Supreme Court of Justice.
He also makes the point that the European Convention on Human Rights on which the Human Rights Act is based was drawn up “for a concentration camp- filled, war- torn Europe in which things we take for granted had been brushed aside”.
Devised with the best of intentions, it is ( via the Human Rights Act) now used for much less noble purposes by criminals, time- wasters and a parade of vexatious litigants.
Lord Judge’s intervention is timely because Justice Secretary Michael Gove is being urged to delay implementing the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge to scrap the Human Rights Act because it would probably lead to a Commons rebellion.
But Lord Judge is right. This newspaper has long been a critic of the Human Rights Act and the European Court of Human Rights. The time for fudging is over. The pledge to scrap the Act helped the Tories into Downing Street. They must keep their promise.