HOME SECRETARY'S SPEECH THE HUMAN RIGHTS CONFERENCE THE BARBICAN - THURSDAY, 22 APRIL 1999
Introduction
This Conference celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Council of Europe.
2. Last December, just over five months ago, I spoke at an event in the Queen Elizabeth II Centre coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Next year we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights. And just a little later, no doubt, we shall be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the UK's ratification of the Convention. Is there a danger of 50th birthday fatigue? I hope not.
3. The achievements of the United Nations Declaration and the Council of Europe's Convention on Human Rights are worth celebrating. They are real and remarkable. It is half a century since they rose from the ashes of the Second World War and that must be an occasion for respect - and a lot of it. That respect for basic human rights is as relevant to the Europe of today - we have only to think of Kosovo - as it ever was.
4. If the UN declaration is the international father of all modern international
rights statements then the European Convention on Human Rights is the European
mother. It has given birth to the clear statement of rights and responsibilities
we have made in the United Kingdom's Human Rights Act 1998. So what better
way to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Council of Europe than to get
together like this to look at the impact of ECHR incorporation? So my congratulations
to the organisers and to your Chairman, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede.
I have two messages for you today: be positive, and don't panic.
Message 1 - be positive
5. My first message, addressed primarily to those of you working in or advising public authorities, is this. Be positive about the Human Rights Act. Welcome it and work with it. Put the new statutory requirement to act compatibly with the Convention at the heart of your concept of public service.
6. The Human Rights Act was not an accident. It wasn't a grudging response to some international ruling or judgement from the courts. It was, and is, a positive and deliberate statement of this Government's commitment to human rights. A commitment made clear not just in our Manifesto but also in the high Parliamentary priority we gave it when we came to power. We did that because we believe in rights, but rights matched by responsibilities to others - the essence of the ECHR. And we believe that the people we all serve will be better off with this legislation than without it.
7. There were three main arguments for incorporation. First, we felt it wrong in principle and wrong in practice that our citizens should have to go to Strasbourg to pursue their rights under the Convention. Wrong in principle because, if rights are to mean anything they must be capable of being implemented in our own courts - they must in short be “brought home”. And wrong in practice because, as we all know, “going to Strasbourg” took years and cost thousands.
8. Secondly, we felt that making the Convention part of our law would have clear symbolic value in demonstrating the UK's commitment to human rights. In building a culture of rights and responsibilities. That does not mean that we have disregarded human rights in the past. Obviously not, since we signed up to the Convention, nearly fifty years ago, and have sought to comply ever since. But bringing home the Convention rights helps restore confidence in government and our judicial system and that must be one of our key aims.
9. Last, but not least, bringing the Convention home means that the UK courts will be able to contribute directly to jurisprudence on human rights not just through development of the common law, but by basing their decisions directly upon the Convention. The Human Rights Act delivers all those things. In time it will, I believe, be seen as the single most beneficial change to British constitutional law in the modern age.
10. The Human Rights Act should not be seen as a threat, as some legal obstacle to your work. It should be seen as an opportunity to serve the public even better - and where it really matters. The Convention is, of course, a legal document - and there is a lot of law underpinning the bare text of the Articles. But human rights as such, don't “belong” to the lawyers, nor should they be seen as mere playthings for the courts. We didn't make the Human Rights Act as law for the lawyers. We made it as a framework of rights and responsibilities for the public. Yes, of course lawyers and the courts are needed to make it all work for the benefit of everyone. But the new Act is an instrument of social utility. That is the difference.
11. We are giving a new meaning to public service professionalism. Do your work professionally and every policy, every act, should be compatible with the Convention rights. And the public will benefit. Do it badly - ignore the Convention rights - and you will do a disservice to the public and to the taxpayer and to the ideals the Council of Europe is all about. So please make “Conventional” behaviour a professional norm. I don't want people to become barrack-room human rights lawyers. But everyone working in or advising public authorities needs to acquire a good general understanding of the Convention.
Message 2 - Don't panic
12. My second message is simple -be realistic and don't panic. Yes, the Human Rights Act 1998 is a major piece of constitutional legislation for the UK. Yes, the Human Rights Act will alter the balance between those who exercise state powers and those on the receiving end. But, no, we don't expect everything public servants have been learning and doing during their careers suddenly to be irrelevant or out of date. How could this be when the UK has been a party to the European Convention for nearly 50 years? The Convention rights have been an integral part of our approach to new legislation throughout the post-War period.
13. This Act, the Human Rights Act brings the Convention rights home - it doesn't bring them about. That was done a long time ago. Reviewing new legislation in the light of the Convention - Strasbourg-proofing, so called - has been a continuous process since the 1950s. By that I mean that the Act presses the Convention rights - and Strasbourg's way of thinking about them - deep into the mixture of our administration. Convention rights will underpin the behaviour of what the Act calls public authorities. There will be an impact at every level of public administration, which may be difficult to quantify. But it seems certain that ECHR points will be raised at every level.
14. Some people have said that the weaker the case, the more human rights points will be raised. My Ministerial colleague, Gareth Williams for example, had a letter the other day about a gentleman from Yorkshire who claimed that wheelie bins - yes, wheelie bins - contravened the ECHR. Article 4, the ban on slavery and servitude, he said was in play. Why? Because, he said, the Council was making him perform compulsory labour, by requiring him to push his wheelie bin across his garden to the kerbside.
15. We must make clear that no, the Convention is not a legal panacea for righting every imagined wrong, however fanciful. That was never the case and it will not be the case under the Act. We have striven to ensure that our laws are already compatible with the Convention. No one need expect the law to be entirely rewritten as a result of incorporation. We rely on the courts to be realistic and sensible in recognising real Convention points and handling cases.
16. When we bring the bulk of the new Act into force - we hope to announce a date shortly - all public authorities throughout the UK will be required to act compatibly. That includes the courts. It includes government departments, local authorities, the police and all bodies with a public authority dimension to their work. I see that many of those are represented here today. Quite simply, it will be unlawful for public authorities to act incompatibly with the Convention rights unless they could not have asked differently under primary legislation.
17. Every department in Whitehall and outside is preparing carefully for implementation of the Act. My own Department is working closely with the Cabinet Office, to help ensure that all public authorities have the information and guidance they need. And underpinning that is our Human Rights Task Force, chaired by Gareth Williams.
18. The Task Force brings Ministers and senior officials together with leading lights amongst human rights NGOs - people like John Wadham and Anne Owers who [I see] are helping with this Conference too. Amongst other things, the Task Force is helping produce guidance and publicity for all public authorities. People need to understand that the Convention rights are not dead letter law. They are alive and dynamic, they can reach into all aspects of social policy.
19. I know that you won't make the mistake of thinking that because you are not taking away someone's life or liberty that the Convention rights are not relevant. They are relevant to us all, they require us all to work out the compatible behaviour required by the Human Rights Act 1988. Above all, we need to see that activity as helping to establish a human rights culture in this country - a society in which the rights and responsibilities of individuals are properly balanced.
Concluding peroration
20. So that's the challenge and opportunity facing everyone at this Conference. You are in the vanguard of change - I know you will rise to the challenges and opportunities before you. I feel proud to have piloted the Human Rights Act onto the statute book. I feel proud that we are reinvigorating democracy - that we are building a human rights culture for the new Millennium.
21. And all this is part of a programme to decentralise power and enhance the rights of individuals within a more open society. Devolution to Scotland and Wales; Freedom of Information; the Human Rights Act; renewal of local Government - all of these are about making Government and politics in Britain more accessible, more modern and more responsive to the aspirations of the people. All of these measures are about returning power to the people from whom it ultimately derives.
22. We want to build a strong, decent, inclusive society - a society which gives people opportunities and the confidence to use them. We want nothing less than to improve the future of Britain by restoring confidence in our constitution and by modernising our justice system. In the early days of incorporation, when we are all getting to grips with a lot that is new or unfamiliar, there will be a risk of forgetting the value of what we are doing. A risk that the whole thing will feel like just another unwelcome burden. My hope is that this Conference will have left an enduring sense of the underlying value in what we are doing. A sense of value and, yes, a sense of pride.
23. Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for your attention. I wish you all every success.