27th February 2016
*
Estragon, sitting on a low mound, is trying to repeal the Human Rights Act.
He pulls at it with both hands.
He gives up, rests, tries again.
*
According to a news report today, the Conservative government has “shelved” the proposals to repeal the Human Rights Act and replace it with a “British Bill of Rights”.
This is not a surprise. It was never going to be an easy task.
In the last week or so, the proposals – as well as a daft and dappy “Sovereignty Bill” proposal – have been nothing other than tokens in a political game between the Prime Minister and other Conservative politicians about supporting and opposing Brexit. But the tokens turned out to have no value and no purchase in this game.
Last May this blog set out the “seven hurdles” for repeal of the Human Rights Act. These hurdles included the facts that the Good Friday Agreement requires the European Convention on Human Rights to have local effect in Northern Ireland and that Scotland would have a veto on the replacement legislation.
These were real hurdles, and they could not be wished away in a game of tokens.
The hurdles are still there.
*
The Human Rights Act is not likely to be repealed this Parliament.
Even if the Conservatives could agree on the proposals, and somehow had solutions to the problems presented by Northern Ireland and Scotland, the parliamentary arithmetic is against them: it is an issue which divides the Conservatives and would unite the opposition parties in both houses.
The Act is not a perfect piece of legislation, even for supporters of human rights law. It actually does not do a lot which could not be done by courts drawing on other, domestic case law; but it does enough.
And the Conservatives have begun to realise that it is not worth the time and the effort of repealing and replacing it.
*
Estragon with a supreme effort succeeds in pulling off his boot. He peers inside it, feels about inside it, turns it upside down, shakes it, looks on the ground to see if anything has fallen out, finds nothing, feels inside it again, staring sightlessly before him.
“Nothing.”
*
_____________________________________
With apologies to Samuel Beckett.
To get alerts for my new posts at Jack of Kent and the FT, and anywhere else, please submit your email address in the “Subscribe” box at the top of this page.
