Response to the open consultation – Human Rights Act Reform: A Modern Bill of Rights
Thank you for the opportunity to respond to this important consultation.
I am choosing to respond to this consultation via letter as the consultation documents are very inaccessible to me and I do not think that they meet current Government Consultation Principles.
- Principle A: It is not ‘clear and concise’ or in ‘plain English’, the questions are not ‘easy to understand’. The British Institute of Human Rights have requested Easy Read and plain language versions of the documents, which are yet to be published even though the consultation period ends on March 8th, 2022.
- Principle D: The only process of engagement offered publicly is through responding via the consultation document or the survey, which, as set out above, is difficult to engage with.
- Principle G: ‘Consultations should take account of the groups that are being consulted’. As a person that holds an interest in ‘our framework of human rights law’ I am a stakeholder in the consultation, yet a way to respond that works for me as a disabled person has not been considered.
The Human Rights Act is based on universal human rights standards. Each of the 16 Articles set out within the Act safeguard the rights of every single person in the UK, rights that are about making sure everyone, no matter who they are, is treated with equal dignity and respect. The Act is about power and people, and getting the balance right, limiting the abuse of power by Government and public authorities. If the Government or a public authority risks our rights, ordinary people can hold them to account, both in the courtroom and in our everyday discussions with those making decisions affecting our lives. It is one of the very few laws that allows disabled people, and survivors of abuse or neglect to hold authorities to account for failing to protect them.
As I understand it, the Government is saying that any reforms will keep the same list of 16 rights. However, I do not believe that this safeguards the current protections everyone in the UK has and the reforms will reduce the legal responsibilities the Government currently has towards us. The reform proposals set out in the Government’s consultation paper would diminish accountability mechanisms under the Act leaving people like myself (and those I support) with little to no access to justice should our rights be risked or breached.
These include limiting the responsibilities of public bodies (including Government) to uphold human rights and even reducing who has these responsibilities through changes to definitions; dictating what proportionality means when balancing rights which will limit the ability of judges and decision-makers to look at each individual situation on the facts; putting more rules on the independent courts when they are deciding whether public bodies (including Government) have risked or breached people’s human rights; and making it harder to bring a legal case and seek justice. I believe that the changes proposed, although when looked at one-by-one may appear to be small tweaks, taken together would fundamentally reduce our ability to access our human rights in the UK. The Equality Act 2010 already provides little or no protection of disabled people’s Human Rights and the UNCRDP has not been enshrined into domestic law so again offers disabled people as a group and as individuals little or no protection.
Articles 8 ad 14 of the HRA are very frequently used in Judicial Reviews to challenge injustices by government and public bodies by disabled people. Without the HRA we believe that we would loose much of the support we now have through our legal systems depriving us even further of any justice, or equality.
Together with proposed changes in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill the potential loss of the HRA makes disabled people fear that their lives will become untenable and that the grave and systematic violations of our rights identified by the UN Disability Committee following their unprecedented inquiry into the UK will become even worse than now.
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The Human Rights Act matters to disabled people because: |
| Nearly all disabled people have regular and on-going interactions with public authorities or government departments so without the protection currently afforded through the HRA such interactions with NHS, GPs, Social Services, health and care providers, schools, DWP, etc may be left without any means through which to protect themselves and their current rights. With social care in particular there is currently no appeals system in place although one was supposed to be implemented with the introduction of the Care Act 2014. The LGSCO can only investigate cases of maladministration so any other issues with social care assessments cannot be dealt with by LGSCO. Using the HRA through Judicial Review process is often the only recourse disabled social care users have to remedy and wrongs.
Further the potential link between UK Government welfare policies and numerous deaths of benefits claimants has been amply evidenced and the only recourse families of the deceased have to seek justice is through using the HRA. During the pandemic the imposition of Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders for almost 40% of disabled people hospitalised in the UK during the first Covid lockdown were disproportionately applied to those people with learning disabilities/difficulties. Legal challenge against this was only possible due to the existence of the HRA. The ramifications of this included death rates of people with learning disabilities anywhere between 6 and 30 times the rate of non disabled people depending on age and month. This list just a very small number of ways in which disabled people’s rights and lives are dependent on the HRA remaining as it currently is and not being watered down into a Bill of Rights without any teeth. As well as reducing access to justice for disabled people in human rights cases, the proposals will distance UK courts from ECHR jurisprudence which will create legal uncertainty and make it more difficult for people to assert their rights in negotiation with public authorities. The HRA works well and does not need to be replaced with something that leads to reduced rights and .less democratic accountability. It is important to remember that an independent judiciary in a liberal democracy is one of the three strands of legitimate governance where necessary holding the Government to account.
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We do not support any of the proposed changes to the Human Rights Act, or the creation of a new UK ‘Bill of Rights’.
I am making this submission response as a member of Disabled People Against Cuts steering group on behalf of the many thousands of disabled people we represent and support.
Yours sincerely,
Linda Burnip, co-founder of DPAC
www.dpac.uk.net
Question 29: Impacts
Part 1. What do you consider to be the likely costs and benefits
of the proposed Bill of Rights?
The HRA is working well and there is no evidence that it needs to be changed let alone scrapped and replaced by something that will lessen peoples’ human rights.
The cost of losing protections enshrined in HRA for disabled people would be high and negative reducing our rights to many areas of our lives.
As previously stated HRA is used by disabled people in many instances where they have to interact with government and public bodies as there is no other effective legislation that helps us uphold our rights. These everyday examples of people being able to use their rights in all aspects of their life are at risk under the proposed new Bill of Rights.
Secondary legislation is often used to change laws that affect disabled people particularly in relation to social security and the welfare state but secondary legislation is required at the moment to be compatible with HRA which affords disabled and older people some protection of their Human Rights. To lose this protection would as the Independent Human Rights Act Review panel put it be “offensive to constitutional norms”
Part 2. What do you consider to be the equalities impacts on individuals with particular protected characteristics of each of the proposed options for reform?
For people from any group with protected characteristics including, but not just, disabled people the loss of HRA would have a very detrimental impact on their human rights and abilities to seek to protect them.
There is an inherent contradiction in the consultation as it states that the government will retain all existing rights under the ECHR and HRA 1998 but also says that it is proposed to reduce the scope of the rights protected and limit access to justice for victims of human rights abuses. Since the end of World War II human rights frameworks have developed internationally stressing the universal and indivisible nature of such rights.
We feel it is vital that plans to change access to Judicial Review are not allowed to go ahead. We are also very concerned about the negative impact that limiting access to the courts at permission stage could have on disabled peoples’ rights as this would simply be another barrier to stop them seeking justice and could also prevent courts hearing cases of public importance..
Part 3. How might any negative impacts be mitigated?
The only way to mitigate negative impacts is to retain the HRA as it now stands.
