---

Human Rights

My Lords, I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Lester has introduced a debate on human rights. It is particularly appropriate 200 years after Parliament voted to end the slave trade, one of the most dreadful crimes against humanity ever committed. I must declare an interest as chairman of the council of JUSTICE, the United Kingdom branch of the International Commission of Jurists. I also have to confess to being not only a barrister but a secular liberal. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, raised some important issues worthy of a separate debate. I note that a debate on secularism has been scheduled for the Thursday following the Recess in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Harrison. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Patten, and I could cross swords on that occasion. All I would like to say today is that I entirely agree with him about the repeal of provisions discriminating against Roman Catholics in the Act of Settlement and the other legislation that he mentioned. You will find that my party agrees, too. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, for her remarkable speech. It is the first time I have heard her speak and I look forward to hearing her on many future occasions. JUSTICE is working on a project to create a British Bill of Rights. That Bill of Rights must, we believe, undoubtedly incorporate the rights conferred by the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights. We hope to go beyond that by adding rights that are not adequately recognised by the European convention; for example, discrimination issues. Article 14 forbids discrimination on matters such as race, nationality or gender, but that prohibition is not freestanding. It is only a breach of the convention where there is discrimination in relation to the exercise of other rights under the convention. There is no express mention in the convention of discrimination on grounds such as sexual orientation or age. The European convention and the Human Rights Act do not include a right to trial by jury for serious crime. The USA and other countries whose legal systems are derived from ours recognise that in many cases as a constitutional right, although it is not recognised as such in many other countries. The American Constitution is one of the great masterpieces in the history of political drafting. It has survived for more than 220 years, with remarkably few changes. The American Bill of Rights was not originally part of the constitution. Almost the first action of the federal Congress was to adopt the first 10 amendments, known in the USA as the Bill of Rights, to which were later added the 13th amendment, on prohibition of slavery, and the 14th, on due process and equal protection of laws. Some provisions of the Bill of Rights are outdated and inconvenient; for example, the second amendment, on the right to bear arms, and the seventh amendment, on the right to trial by jury in civil cases. By and large, however, the American Bill of Rights does and has done an immense service for the USA, and Americans are rightly very proud of it. Our Human Rights Act is the closest thing that we have to the American Bill of Rights. I believe that it will be seen as the greatest achievement of the Blair Government, something which that Government have tried to undermine ever since; it is the modern Magna Carta. Why are we not as proud of the Human Rights Act as the Americans are of their Bill of Rights? There are a number of reasons. It is partly because of its sheer novelty; we have had it as legislation for less than 10 years and perhaps it has not fully bedded in yet. It is partly because the aim of the Human Rights Act was to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights, which contains the dreadful word ““European””. That leads some otherwise rational people to foam at the mouth, even though the European Convention on Human Rights is not a creation of the European Union and was largely drafted by British lawyers led by David MaxwellFyfe, later, as Lord Kilmuir, a Conservative Lord Chancellor. It is partly also because of a vicious campaign by some parts of the British media, which have based their attacks on the Human Rights Act on stories that involve misinterpretation of the Act by officials or that are simply untrue. It is partly also—this is particularly important—because many people have not yet understood the real purpose and nature of the Bill. All of us welcome the right for ourselves to freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of private life and so on, but any Bill of Rights must confer rights not just on ourselves but on, for example, terrorists, paedophiles and illegal immigrants. It is true that they have no right to incite terrorism or to circulate child pornography—nothing in the Human Rights Act requires that; far from it—but there are rights, such as the right to a fair trial and the right not to suffer inhumane punishment or torture, to which they are entitled. Bills of Rights are directed at abuses from two very different sources, the first being against oppression by a Government. All of us understand that. We understand the damage that an oppressive Government, such as the Government of Zimbabwe today, can impose on their citizens. However, the other problem with which a Bill of Rights is meant to deal is oppression by us of other people; that is known as the tyranny of the majority. It is much more difficult for people to understand that; but we cannot claim the right to a fair trial for ourselves and refuse a fair trial for those accused of terrorism or paedophilia. We cannot detain people without trial unless they present a threat to the life of the nation. We have to be prepared to give rights to others, such as freedom to express their religious belief and freedom to change those religious beliefs, which they themselves in some cases would not be prepared to give us. Those are things that we must accept if we want to live in a humane and tolerant society. That is why, for example, I believe that the Prime Minister was wrong in saying after the London bombings of July 2005 that, "““the rules of the game have changed””." This is not a game, and the rules have not changed. The European Convention on Human Rights is a pragmatic document and gives government all the necessary powers for the defence of national security and prevention of crime. Without a Bill of Rights there is a real and increasing danger that we would become a brutal and vindictive society. Surely that is not a society in which we would wish to live. I wish to add a coda to what I have said. I understand from newspaper reports that the budget for the DCA is to be cut by over 3 per cent in real terms. I understand that law and the lawyers are not necessarily popular and that, politically, there is more to gain in the short term by putting more money into hospitals and less into the legal system, but if we carry that problem too far we will end up with very slightly improved hospitals and a legal system in meltdown. The budget for the DCA is about£3 billion a year or about a third of what we are paying for the 2012 Olympics. Most of the budget goes on legal aid, but legal aid has been squeezed for years. Because criminal legal aid gets priority, civil legal aid—which is essential in, for example, cases concerning the right to housing and to benefits and cases of family breakdown—is on its way to being squeezed out entirely. I attach no blame to the Minister in this, and no doubt she is as anxious as I am to see that we have a strong legal aid system, but I believe that the destruction, which has been going on for some time and looks as if it might be accelerating, of what was once one of the world's best systems of legal aid will do immense damage to the rule of law and to human rights in this country.