Cox calls for consultation on UK Bill of Rights

European Convention blamed for blocking deportation of criminals is ‘unloved’ by Britons

BORIS JOHNSON’S chief law officer has called for a British Bill of Rights to challenge the “unloved” European convention blamed for preventing the deportation of foreign criminals and terrorists.

Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General, said there needed to be a public consultation on a British Bill of Rights because Britons did not feel “ownership” or “affection” towards the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The ECHR has been criticised for hampering the extradition of some of Britain’s most dangerous terrorists, such as Abu Qatada, the al-qaeda mastermind, as well as criminals on the grounds of rights to life, liberty, privacy and family life.

Mr Cox also criticised judicial overreach into politics just days after the appeal court provoked fury in Government by blocking the deportation of 25 foreign-born convicted criminals to Jamaica after their lawyers sought a judicial review.

Downing Street signalled earlier this week that it wanted to limit the scope of judicial review after the deportations “farce” but sources yesterday downplayed the prospect of a new Bill of Rights.

Mr Cox told an event hosted by the Institute of Government: “I think there has always been a case for a Bill of Rights and I have long supported it. There is a sense in which the Convention on Human Rights doesn’t feel as if it is owned by the British people.

“The great advantage a Bill of Rights would give us is that you could at least marry up the affections of the British people for its own Bill of Rights. I would envisage a massive programme of citizen consultation.”

He said there was a “perfectly legitimate question” as to whether or not the

“judicialisation of politics requires some changing of the balance and has it gone too far?” He said there was a “feeling that it has done so” but he pledged there would be “no headlong rush” to reform.

He rejected the idea of politically-appointed judges though he believed there was a case for considering Canada-style parliamentary hearings for candidates for Supreme Court justices – not to select them but to make the process more transparent.

David Cameron proposed a British Bill of Rights in the 2010 Conservative manifesto but it was blocked by the Liberal Democrats.

Martin Howe QC, a specialist in EU law who sat on Mr Cameron’s commission on the Bill, backed Mr Cox. He said: “One of the problems – not the only problem – with the Human Rights Act and the European Convention has been that it is not regarded by the British people as something they should cherish. The problem is the detailed way some of the rights have been interpreted over the years particularly by the Strasbourg human rights court.”

The Prime Minister’s spokesman said a new Bill of Rights “was not something that was in the Government’s manifesto”.

The manifesto said: “We will update the Human Rights Act and administrative law to ensure that there is a proper balance between the rights of individuals, our vital national security and effective government.”

The spokesman added: “An effective government will ensure that judicial review is available to protect individuals against an overbearing state while ensuring that it is not abused to conduct politics by other means or to create needless delays.”

Hopes were receding last night that Mr Cox could be offered the chance to run a major review into judicial activism as a sop for being sacked in Mr Johnson’s first reshuffle today.

Mr Cox was understood to be keen on the job as long as he was given enough support.

But Government sources said that he was unlikely to get the role.