Courts are increasingly basing their verdicts on British law rather than European human rights legislation as the empire strikes back, according to the countrys top woman judge. Lady Hale suggested the move may be a response to the rising tide of anti-European sentiment among parliamentarians, the press and the public. In recent years, a string of controversial verdicts have been handed down which cited the European Convention on Human Rights, which was enshrined into UK law by Labours Human Rights Act. Commonly, criminals and others have won victories based on the likes of article 8 – the right to a family and private life. But Lady Hale said that renewed emphasis was now being placed on British constitutional principles as a source of rights and obligations, rather than European legislation. The deputy president of the Supreme Court said that UK constitutionalism is on the march. In a lecture to lawyers, Lady Hale said: After more than a decade of concentrating on European instruments as the source of rights, remedies and obligations, there is emerging a renewed emphasis on the common law and distinctively UK constitutional principles as a source of legal inspiration. It seems to me to take us in some interesting directions. Lady Hale said the theme had been characterised as the empire strikes back but she preferred to broaden it into UK constitutionalism on the march. She said that inside the Supreme Court there was a growing awareness of the extent to which the UKs constitutional principles should be at the forefront of the courts analysis. Lady Hale added that litigants and litigators had been reminded that they should look first to the common law to protect their fundamental rights. She said she would leave it to others to decide whether the trend was developing as a response to the rising tide of anti-European sentiment among parliamentarians, the press and the public or whether whether a marker was being put down for what might happen if the 1998 Human Rights Act was repealed. The Tories are expected to propose scrapping the legislation in in their manifesto for next years election. This might mean the courts would have to turn to other laws instead to give protection to the public. An alternative, she said, was the courts were expressing simple irritation that our proud traditions of UK constitutionalism seemed to have been forgotten. Earlier this month, Lord Neuberger, president of the Supreme Court - and the UKs most senior judge - said British judges might sometimes have been too ready to follow decisions made by the European Court of Human Rights. Lord Neuberger said judges were beginning to see that such an approach might not be appropriate. He said one of the most controversial aspects of the European Convention on Human Rights was that it was an international set of rules with the European Court of Human Rights - based in Strasbourg, France - as its final arbiter
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 02:04:47 +0000
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