Shami Chakrabarti, in the Cumberland Lodge Annual Lecture last week, refuted many objections to the Human Rights Act. Among them was the charge that it is unpopular with the British public. The values the Act represents aren’t unpopular, it just depends on how you ask the questions.
If asked “What single measure would have the biggest impact on cutting crime in Britain?” A staggering 21% of the general public may well say: “scrapping the Human Rights Act” (see Lord Ashcroft’s report “Crime, Punishment & The People” March 2011). It makes one wonder what percentage would consider scrapping the Human Rights Act as the second most effective crime-cutting policy (after - of course - "tougher sentencing".).
If you don’t mention the Human Rights Act and crime, but instead ask about fair trials, torture and privacy, you get the following results:
95% of respondents believe the right to a fair trial is vital or important
91% believe the right not to be tortured or degraded is vital or important
94% believe that respect for privacy and family life is vital or important
(See the ComRes data “Liberty Human Rights Act Poll”, October 2010).
So the Human Rights Act is (or at any rate, appears to be) unpopular in name, but its values are fundamentally enshrined in British attitudes to law and society. Paradoxical? Certainly, but it’s hard to draw any hard conclusions from this inconsistency. It may be, for example, that the media has distorted our natural sympathy for the Human Rights Act by obscuring what it stands for (see Human Rights and the Media, by Annie Gosling).
The underlying question is whether the Human Rights Act actually needs popular support. Let’s assume – as various polls and commentators indicate – that the Clapham Omnibus doesn’t like the Act. So what? Laws don’t have to be popular to be right. Is it really a problem for the Human Rights Act were it to lack a democratic mandate?
There’s a deep question here about what purpose the Act serves. If its purpose is to strengthen and protect democracy, it looks odd when a democracy doesn’t support it. Is it, though, a full-on reductio ad absurdum that the legislative bastion of democracy has poor democratic support? No, not really. Democracies are complex and difficult to run. Why should everyone be expected to understand and respect each of the legal mechanisms required by a successful democracy?
It is a shame, though. If talking about “Human Rights” sprang easily from the tongue in classrooms, hospitals and police stations Britain would certainly be a better place. It’s all very well for all of us basically to support the values of the Human Rights Act, but sometimes values do need to be shouted about. It isn’t just in the potential for legal redress that legislation has a social impact – it’s also in the way they express what we, as a society, stand for. To be proud of the Human Rights Act is to express and make explicit our respect for fellow human-beings. Surely a bit more of that would be no bad thing.
Dr Owen Gower
Senior Fellow, Cumberland Lodge
You can listen to or download Shami Chakrabarti's lecture by clicking here >>
