---

Human Rights

Of course it was, because under domestic law, and before the embracement of the European convention on human rights, there was only one judge as to who and what the law should be. Judges interpreting the law in an individual case could be set right by Parliament. The Human Rights Act refers to a key document to which I give great grace—the right of the Law Lords to make a judgment of incompatibility. That is the trick by which the measure tries to reconcile the new process with the doctrine of the supremacy of Parliament. At the time, the then Lord Chancellor and the then Home Secretary—now the Leader of the House—made much of that provision. That is the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question. Like the Minister, I was setting out a parallel history, because I believe that the measure sets up a profound tension between our constitutional arrangements and those of international law. The Court in Strasbourg takes on a whole raft of international human rights instruments and by so doing imports them directly into British law. That moves across a terrific field, so my criticism, and my anxiety, is that, just like that extraordinarily well-regarded Cabinet all those years ago, I fear that the headline rights—those we struggled for and acquired in this country—suddenly have an interpretation far beyond anything I can comprehend. The Labour Cabinet was confident that we would never appear before the European Court of Human Rights. My final observation is that respect for our liberties and our freedoms is important to our democracy. It has been a long march and, in an extraordinary way, as we reached democracy by the middle of the last century, the power of the Executive in the House of Commons was the dominant force. That power is not always sensitive to what a 17th-century gentleman would have regarded as liberty. As we look through Locke and the interpretations of the philosophies of the time, we find that there was always a reserve: if a Government stepped beyond their purpose—the protection of liberty—there were other means to achieve it. Governments feared the mob. That was one of the outside interjections, but so, too, was reasoned public opinion. We have moved on from the divine right of kings, although sometimes listening to Government Front Benchers one would think they were acting with divine certitude. However, as we see them crumble, we know that all things come to an end. The Human Rights Act has been a Trojan horse in one sense, because the declaration of incompatibility has halted the Government in some of their wilder extravagances, as they encroach on our time-honoured sense of what are appropriate civil liberties, which has been carefully crafted over the centuries. I tell the Minister, as I tell the Lord Chancellor, or the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, or whatever diminution he finds appropriate, that the measure has always lacked common consent. That constitutional change was never referred to the British people; it was shouted out, ““This is the way we must go.”” A long time ago, people—people such as me in all humility—who were anxious about Plato’s ““Republic”” knew that they did not want a class of people beyond my reach to determine how they should live. I do not want Plato’s guardians to govern me and I suspect that that is deep in the psyche of the British people. Judges are for the administration of justice under the authority of Parliament, not of international instruments that can undermine the very political processes that enable the parties to allocate their arguments about what is to be done to improve the condition, freedoms and liberties of the people.