The intellectual Titan, Dominic Raab, introduced The Bill of Rights Bill to the House of Commons yesterday. This is the first page:
As I understand it, none of that needed to be said. This might have been called the 'Bill of Political Posturing' if that was all of it.
But it is not. This is clause 4 on freedom of speech:
Look at subsections (c) and (d) of section 3. We no longer have freedom of speech to defend a claim to citizenship, and migrants are denied this right. Literally, the right to be heard by a court on something as basic as the right to reside or to claim asylum is removed. That is staggering. The government can now strip us of our citizenship and we have no right to complain.
And then look at clause 7:
This is dire drafting (and I have been reading legislation as part of my job for forty or more years now), but the essence of it is to say that if there is doubt as to whether Parliament correctly appraised the balance of rights when legislating it shall be assumed that it did, because it is Parliament. In other words, the Bill is saying it will be much harder to bring a judicial review because the presumption is that any challenge will prima facie be wrong. And what seems certain is that this will also apply to the vast range of delegated 'Henry VIII' powers now granted to ministers to legislate at will without ever consulting parliament, meaning that in effect rule by decree without challenge is now permissible.
And this is a supposed Bill of Rights? I don't think so.
Worry. They are coming for you.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
You’ve been warning that ‘they are coming for you’ for a while now – and rightly so, especially since Johnson became PM and the drift to a fascist state became more obvious – but this is a really big leap further in that direction. Nobody should be in any doubt any longer of what the direction of travel – and intent – of this government is: an authoritarian (call it fascist if you like) state with a rigged democracy that keeps one party in power (e.g. Hungary or Singapore).
Presumably clause 4(c) could be made to apply not just to refugees or asylum seekers, but to any current British citizen (‘subject’); i.e., all of us. This is a handy way for Governments to remove anybody they don’t like. In the 18th century, they had a short way with justice in such cases: compulsory exile, with Australia as the favourite destination for poiitcal miscreants like Thomas Muir. It seems we may be returning to periods that remains in beloved memory of the Right (the Daily Mail has already hauled out “Labour Isn’t Working”, even when there is a Conservative Government supposedly in power – and there is nothing more crackpot than that): for its opportunity to distribute the kind of disturbing punishments which gives the Right the voyeuristic frisson of satisfaction it compulsively enjoys; which means now, not just a return to the 1970s, but to the 1790s.
That is my reading of it
To most folks the whole thing reads of gobbledygook, so how is anyone including legal experts meant to understand and interpret this?! As you say Clause 7 contains some worrying implications for everyone.
The answer is to expect the worst and plan for it whilst hoping that the best happens ie this Bill is so watered down by the Lords or is challenged in international courts to stop it being fully implemented.
ffs
Sorry to go way, way “off-thread” but I wish to draw attention to a Common Weal paper by the very well-informed analyst of devolution Jim Cuthbert, ”. Cuthbert identifies the Conservative-Unionist devolution trap into which the SNP has fallen; hook, line and sinker. I will not rehearse here what is better critiqued in the paper. I have been trying to draw to attention to this critical issue for years; but Cuthbert is in a much better position, from his years at the ‘coal face’ of devlution to explore the detail. I termed it “managerialism”; the determination the SNP had to show the (small-‘c’ conservative) Scottish electorate they could competently manage the devolution settlement. The problem is they never lifted their heads above the management issue, and became a complacent prisoner of their own perspective on ‘success’: they have promoted and depended too much on accountants, bankers and economists who are at best managerial artisans of matters they ill understand. It was obvious, from the start; but if they didn’t twig immediately, the decision to increase powers over income tax rates (notice, rates only) in 2016; the poisoned chalice gift, straight from the Westminster Court Jester had the trap laid out in capital letters. The SNP fell for it, without a murmur. They have been mugged by Unionism. Big time.
I agree
Bang on target John.
That was pretty much what this economic ignoramus thought obvious at the time, although Jim Cuthbert gives chapter and verse as to just how bad a decision it was.
I’m afraid that from then on I’ve considered the SNP in its current incarnation as being captured by incompetents who are content to ride hobby-horses and hope for good PR; it’s damn near analogous to giving children matches to play with.
Sorry, forgot the title and link. Jim Cuthbert, “Responsibility without Power: the Mark of the Mug through the Ages”: https://commonweal.scot/fiscal-trap/
Thank you John.
And what a shame.
There many troubling aspects of this Bill Bill (what nonsense).
Clause 7 seems to be saying that the UK domestic courts have no role in balancing various rights under the Convention, if there is any relevant Act of Parliament or regulations made under it. Essentially Parliament (or, more accurately in many cases, ministers using wide powers granted by a supine Parliament) get to decide, and their view is given “greatest possible weight” however much it tramples on the rights of any individual. Inevitably UK courts will be left powerless to intervene, and the UK will be found in breach of the Convention when cases are taken to Strasbourg.
With respect, I don’t read clause 4 as limiting any rights. Claude 4(3) simply lists some situations where the “great weight” required by clause 1(1) does not apply. Otherwise, the usual rules continue, including the right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the Convention.
You are right – the legal drafting is all over the place. Much of it is nonsense in a stick. “This Act reforms the law…”. No shit Sherlock. It “clarifies and rebalances” – what on earth does that mean? Clause 9 gives everyone accused of a crime the right to a jury trial in all the cases where the law already requires it. But not in the cases where the existing law does not. And so on.
At its core, this Bill will make it easier for public bodies to breach an individual’s human rights protected under the Convention, as interpreted by the Strasbourg court, and make it more difficult for an affected individual to seek a remedy for that breach.
I’ll agree to differ on clause 4
But the rest I agree on
So depressing – we really are going down into the abyss.
Amnesty International also making similar points
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/22/a-british-bill-of-rights-this-draconian-plan-is-a-rights-removal-bill
I, a citizen in a Parliamentary democracy, am innocent until proven guilty.
I elect a Parliament to represent me.
Parliament, in which I have vested my personal sovereignty, is innocent and can never be guilty.
*That* is the measure of the sacrifice being demanded here. If my sovereignty vested in Parliament cannot be found guilty, acquiescing in every edict of prescription and proscription, where now lies my citizen’s right to trial?
Superb legal analysis of what the Bill Bill does and doesn’t do here (from the Professor of Public Law and Chair of the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge, and former Legal Adviser to the House of Lords Constitution Committee – which in terms makes him the legal equivalent of a fox who’s just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University: https://publiclawforeveryone.com/2022/06/22/the-uks-new-bill-of-rights/
Agreed – read it after I blogged
I follow him on Twitter
The way in which this Government is so emboldened to produce something like this is really frightening.
It’s a heady mixture of determination and desperation – typically reactionary but also resolute – nothing in their minds is going to stop them is it?
If only we had a progressive government of such determination……………………..