Human Rights Act 1998

Before the HRA

From 1966 individuals had the right to petition the ECtHR for issues within or against the UK like Sunday Times v UK. This was long and costly to do taking about 6 years and requiring people to travel to Strasbourg. The HRA received Royal Assent in 1998 and then came into effect in 2000.

Section 7 of the HRA

A person can bring a claim if they are directly affected by the actions of a public body carrying out a public function e.g government departments, courts, public/private hospitals. This means the HRA does not generally apply directly to private relationships. Appeals can still be made to the ECtHR

Section 2

UK courts must take into account Strasbourg jurisprudence with a persuasive precedent. Guzzardi v Italy

Section 3 

This allows a reading in, down or out approach to UK legislation to make it Convention compliant in so far as possible to do so.

Section 4

If section 3 cannot be done a ‘declaration of incompatibility’ must be published putting the ball in parliaments court to make a change

Section 6

The obligation on public bodies and quasi public bodies not to act in a way that is incompatible with the Convention. Vertical but not horizontal accountability.

Section 7

The right of an individual whose rights have been infringed by a public or quasi public body to take legal action against that body, making convention rights judiciable in the UK courts.

Section 8

Courts may award whatever remedies that are within their powers to give

Section 10

Ministers can pass a piece of delegated legislation to fix an issue if highlighted by section 4.

Nicklinson v MoJ

In this case C was trying to get the UK to change their criminalisation of assisted suicide. It was decided by the Supreme Court that there was a wide margin of appreciation that meant no declaration of incompatibility was issued even though it was felt the issue was incompatible with the ECHR.

Hirst v UK

In this case it was decided that a blanket ban on prisoners voting went against the doctrine of proportionality. The UK government had maintained this issue had a wide margin of appreciation with most MPs strongly opposing change. The government then only made minor changes very slowly to avoid having to give prisoners voting rights they didn’t deserve.