HSF Responds To The Government's Consultation On Human Rights Reform

• Published date: 15 March 2022
• Law Firm: Herbert Smith Freehills
• Author: Mr Andrew Lidbetter, Nusrat Zar and Jasveer Randhawa

The main window for response to the Government's consultation paper on the reform of the Human Rights Act 1998 ("HRA") has now closed. The consultation paper proposed an overhaul of the existing human rights regime in the UK by replacing the HRA with a new Bill of Rights. The proposals involved giving greater legislative guidance to courts on key human rights issues, tweaking some of the existing legislation, and cultivating a distinctly British angle to domestic human rights law. A summary of the proposals can be read here.

In this blog post, we summarise some of the key aspects of our response to the consultation paper. In general, we think the system works well as it currently stands. We are concerned that changes may result in misalignment with the jurisprudence from the European Court of Human Rights ("ECtHR"). Such misalignment is likely to cause more cases to seek redress directly from the ECtHR, defeating the original purpose of the HRA, which was to make rights accessible domestically. We also consider that the courts are best placed to determine human...