Good Law Project statement: Human rights are for everyone

https://goodlawproject.org/

Human rights are for everyone

Stonewall and Disabled People Against Cuts, convened by Good Law Project and with more than 30 other civil society organisations as signatories, have sent submissions to the UN body that oversees national human rights institutions, GANHRI, about the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).

The submissions are pursuant to a ‘regular’ review initiated by GANHRI following submissions made by Stonewall and Good Law Project earlier this year that pointed out the increasing politicisation of human rights under the EHRC’s controversial new Chair, Baroness Falkner. The submissions note that the conduct of the EHRC, and its relationship with Government, no longer meet many of the criteria of an A status institution.

This is in large part due to the failings of the UK Government to provide the EHRC with adequate statutory powers, an independent appointments process and sufficient funding, and the failings of its leadership to work effectively with civil society organisations. These together have had a severe impact on the EHRC’s ability and its motivation to effectively and independently perform its mandate to protect and promote human rights.

The result is that the EHRC has become a cheerleader for the Government rather than an independent monitor. As such, it no longer deserves the vaunted A status, or the prestige that come with it.

These failures have had, and continue to have, real-world consequences for marginalised and excluded groups throughout the UK, including in particular people with disabilities and the trans community.

For the EHRC to retain its A status gaslights those communities whose dignities it now undermines. The letter, and accompanying submissions, calls on GANHRI to recognise the reality that now exists.

You can read the letter in full here.

You can also read DPAC’s submission below

Statement to GANHRI

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC)

May 2022

The status of the GB Equality and Human Rights Commission

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) was established to be the National Equality Body and National Human Rights Institution for Great Britain. However the EHRC is not fit for purpose and is a feeble body whose primary mission only seems to be to avoid rocking the boat.

We endorse Stonewall’s statement that “failings in our national human rights body are a threat to us all”¹.

For over 11 years DPAC and other Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations (DDPOs) have asked EHRC to investigate serious issues of disability discrimination only to be met with a wholly inadequate response and failure to act by the EHRC.

EHRC has “de-prioritised” any inquiry into the potential link between UK Government welfare policies and numerous deaths of benefits claimants in spite of being provided with ample evidence of cases where disabled benefit claimants lost their lives due to welfare reforms²³.

They further failed to act regarding the imposition of Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders for almost 1/3 of people hospitalised in the UK during the first Covid lockdown. DNRs were disproportionately applied to disabled people, particularly people with learning impairments⁴.

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 month⁵.

The EHRC’s tweet of 7^th May 2022, saying it “does not recommend that ‘long covid’ be treated as a disability” was highly misleading and provocative. Its effect has been to undermine the rights of disabled people with Long Covid to equality and non-discrimination in the workplace and beyond. This, at a time when their rights to protection under the Equality Act should be promoted by the EHRC, in order to avoid the mass job losses leading to poverty and skills shortages which are blighting our economy.

They have also failed to act to ensure that disabled peoples’ right to independent living is upheld and in addition the EHRC has persistently refused to call for the bringing in of a complete end to involuntary detention in psychiatric hospitals and forced treatment of people given mental health diagnoses and people with learning disabilities/difficulties and/or autism, despite its own human rights status and despite the government’s responsibility to comply with the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People. ⁶

The EHRC’s continuing failure to act reflects an organisation that has fundamentally de-prioritised and ignored key disability issues. That is borne out by these decisions and further evidenced by the downgrading of the role of Disability Commissioner and disbanding of the Disability Advisory Committee⁷. Moreover, the EHRC has no robust mechanism for involving user-led Deaf and Disabled People’s organisations to inform its approach.

This hasn’t happened in a vacuum.The EHRC is being co-opted by the UK Government⁸ at the same time as the Government is introducing some of the most authoritarian anti-protest legislation we have ever seen⁹. The UK Government is additionally consulting on proposals to chip away at the universality and indivisibility of rights contained in the Human Rights Act 1998¹⁰, and to reduce access to those rights through the courts. And it is legislating to weaken the process of judicial review and access to justice¹¹. This is the time we need a strong guardian of civil liberties and our human rights infrastructure, not a weak and compliant one.

The EHRC’s current leadership and policy direction represents a serious threat to not just the rights of disabled people, but all communities targeted by this Government. We have seen this in the EHRC’s backhanded treatment of complaints by the Muslim Council of Britain concerning Islamophobia within the Conservative Party¹². And in its lack of support for the rights of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. We have seen it in the EHRC framing of anti-racism as ‘political’ and therefore outside its remit. Its leadership consequently gaslit staff of colour who proposed an equity and rights-based approach to an inquiry on race and the pandemic – and refused to acknowledge institutional and structural racism¹³.

We see it in the EHRC’s current treatment of trans and non-binary people.

DPAC stands in solidarity with trans and non-binary people; and we recognise and support the many Deaf and Disabled people who are also trans and non-binary. There is so much common ground in the fights for disability liberation and trans liberation: we stand for bodily autonomy, against unnecessary medicalisation, and against hate, stigma and discrimination.

The EHRC has undermined Scotland’s proposals for reform of our intrusive and medicalised gender recognition process¹⁴, and resisted a ban on trans conversion therapy¹⁵. The equality body also backed the designation of transphobic ‘gender-critical’ views as a protected aspect of Religion or Belief under the Equality Act 2010¹⁶. It has failed to publish guidance for schools to support trans children and young people¹⁷. This shift among the EHRC leadership to deny the rights of trans people echoes UK Government attitudes towards the rights of trans and non-binary communities¹⁸.

Collectively these actions lead us to believe the EHRC no longer has credibility in its role to uphold human rights and equality or to act independently. It has betrayed the communities that need it most. It does not have the confidence of Deaf and Disabled people.

The EHRC has wilfully ignored and neglected its overarching duties under the Equality Act 2006¹⁹: working towards a society that respects and protects equality, human rights, dignity and worth, where people are not limited by prejudice or discrimination and can participate equally, with mutual respect and valuing of diversity.

The EHRC’s profound failure as a defender of rights stems from egregious political interference, and deliberate under-funding, alongside an absolute lack of effective mechanisms to involve and prioritise the needs of the communities that it was established to support, particularly Deaf and Disabled People and our organisations.

We submit that the EHRC is an NHRI under threat, and in crisis. The UK Parliament must legislate to address the founding statute of the EHRC in the Equality Act 2006. In the meantime the EHRC’s ‘A’ status accreditation must be revoked.

A new, Paris Principles-compliant EHRC must have:

• guarantees of independence and freedom from political interference
• no political appointees, and an independent appointments process that ensures the board reflects and represents the communities it needs to serve;
• a line of accountability to, and direct communication with, UK Parliaments
• guarantees of adequate funding to deliver its full remit (including direct support for individuals experiencing discrimination or human rights breaches);
• additional powers and duties to hold government, public authorities and the private sector to account, and advance equitable treatment and substantive equality for all protected characteristic groups, as well as in relation to social class;
• proper mechanisms for the institution to involve marginalised communities and enable them to hold it to account.

This statement is further supported by other Disabled Peoples’ Organisations -:

Dorothy Gould: Founder and on behalf of Liberation.

Anne Pridmore on behalf of Being the Boss.

Katie Clarke on behalf of Bringing Us Together.

Giselle Hoad on behalf of Adult Social Care Warriors.

Mark Harrison on behalf of Norfolk DPAC.

Catherine Hale n behalf of Chronic Illness Inclusion Project.

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