End of Human Rights Act: Liz Truss confirms plans to replace with BRITISH Bill of Rights
Justice Secretary Liz Truss has told MPs the Government plans to repeal the Human Rights Act but will not withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.
Justice Secretary Liz Truss
LIz Truss confirms plans to repeal Human Rights Act
Ms Truss said existing laws would be replaced with a British Bill of Rights which would "protect our rights in a better way" than the Human Rights Act.
She told members of the cross-party Commons Justice Select Committee she would be looking at the parameters of a new British Bill of Rights and said thorough consultation would be needed.
Ms Truss said: "There are changes that could be made but that is really a matter that we need to develop in the proposals that we will be putting forward in due course."
Lizz Truss addresses the Commons Justice Select Committee
The Human Rights Act came into force in 2000 and effectively enshrines the protections in the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights into UK law.
But many Conservatives have long been bitterly opposed to the Act, particularly since the Strasbourg Court protected prisoners’ rights to vote and refused several deportation orders.
The move to scrap it formed part of David Cameron’s 2015 election manifesto, a pledge seen by critics as a sop to his party's Euro-sceptic MPs.
Justice Secretary Lizz Truss
What the British Bill of Rights will do is protect our rights but in a better way
Alex Chalk, Tory MP for Cheltenham, questioned why the Government wanted to scrap the Human Rights Act but stay signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights.
He asked: "What is the point of repealing the Human Rights Act if we are staying within the convention?"
Ms Truss replied: "We were members of the convention long before the Human Rights Act. The Human Rights Act is a fairly recent phenomenon.
"And what the British Bill of Rights will do is protect our rights but in a better way."
The Royal Courts of Justice in London
She continued: "That is fundamentally what we are saying: that there are big problems with the Human Rights Act that are nothing to do with the convention - problems that have only emerged since the Human Rights Act came in.
"We are still working on it and I don't have details about the proposal."
Scales of Justice
Prime Minister Theresa May has previously signalled strong support for replacing the Act with a British Bill of Rights
In a speech delivered when she was still Home Secretary she said: “This is Great Britain, the country of Magna Carta, parliamentary democracy and the fairest courts in the world.
"And we can protect human rights ourselves in a way that doesn’t jeopardise national security or bind the hands of parliament.
"A true British Bill of Rights, decided by parliament and amended by parliament, would protect not only the rights set out in the convention, but could include traditional British rights not protected by the ECHR such as the right to trial by jury.”