The Round-Up: Constitutional Commotions, Council Housing and Article 8, and the A6 Compatibility of ASBO Legislation

27 May 2018 by Eleanor Leydon

Image Credit: The Guardian

In a landmark moment for women’s rights, the Irish electorate has voted in favour of abolishing the 8^th Amendment by a stunning two-thirds majority of 1,429,981 votes to 723,632.

Whilst abortion has long been illegal in Ireland under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, the notorious 8^th Amendment, which gives the foetus’ right to life absolute parity with that of the woman carrying it, was enacted after a 1983 referendum lobbied for by pro-life activists. By virtue of the amendment:

“The state acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.”

Lawyers for Yes emphasised that the amendment created ‘absolute legal paralysis in dealing with crisis pregnancies’ and had to be repealed if women in Ireland were to receive ‘appropriate’ and ‘compassionate’ healthcare. Also on the UKHRB, Rosalind English shares a powerful analysis of the extraordinary nature of the legal obligations imposed on women’s bodies by this provision.

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Terrorism and free speech: the criminal law and the Convention

17 March 2026 by Guest Contributor

By Samuel Talalay

Introduction

Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR” or “the Convention”) provides qualified protection for speech. Section 12(1A) of the Terrorism Act 2000 (“the 2000 Act”) criminalises certain speech acts relating to proscribed organisations. In the case of R v ABJ; R v BDN [2026] UKSC 8 the Supreme Court was asked to decide whether these two things could be reconciled: is s 12(1A) of the 2000 Act compatible with the Convention?

In its judgment, given on 26 February 2026, the Court answered this question with an unequivocal ‘yes’. The offence introduced by s 12(1A) was prescribed by law and necessary in a democratic society. Crucially, conviction would always represent a proportionate interference with the defendant’s Article 10 right to free speech where the elements of the offence, properly understood, were made out.

In providing such a resounding answer, however, the Court risks setting the bar too high for legislative provisions to be compatible with the Convention.

The extraterritorial application of the EU Charter in Syria: To the Union and Beyond? – Michael Rhimes

10 March 2017 by Guest Contributor

1) The Situation

“no one leaves home unless

home is the mouth of a shark

you only run for the border

when you see the whole city running as well”

• Warsan Shire

Shire’s words are the background to the recent case of C-638/16 X and X. So much was recognized by Advocate General Mengozzi, who concluded his Opinion as follows:

“175. Before concluding, allow me to draw your attention to how much the whole world, in particular here in Europe, was outraged and profoundly moved to see, two years ago, the lifeless body of the young boy Alan, washed up on a beach, after his family had attempted, by means of smugglers and an overcrowded makeshift vessel full of Syrian refugees, to reach, via Turkey, the Greek island of Kos. Of the four family members, only his father survived the capsizing. It is commendable and salutary to be outraged. In the present case, the Court nevertheless has the opportunity to go further, as I invite it to, by enshrining the legal access route to international protection which stems from Article 25(1)(a) of the Visa Code. Make no mistake: it is not because emotion dictates this, but because EU law demands it.”
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Article 8

1 June 2010 by Adam Wagner

Article 8 | Right to private and family life

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Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides as follows:

(1) Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

(2) There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

The corresponding provision in the EU Charter, Article 7, is essentially the same as Article 8 ECHR except that “correspondence” has been changed to “communications” to take account of changing technology in this area. Although it does not set out the clawback provisions in the way that Article 8 ECHR does, the explanatory note to the text of Article 7 of the Charter makes it clear that the rights it lays out are intended to be subject to the limitations set out in Article 8(2) ECHR.

Article 8 is one of the most open-ended of the Convention rights, covering a growing number of issues and extending to protect a range of interests that do not fit into other Convention categories. This is partly because neither the Commission, when it was still in existence, nor the Court in its present incarnation, have attempted any comprehensive definition of Article 8 interests, adapting them to meet changing times.

Article 8 contains both negative and positive obligations. The state is under a negative obligation not to interfere with privacy rights, but in addition Strasbourg case law has also extended Article 8 to impose a positive duty to take measures to prevent private parties from interfering with these rights: (1) X (2) Y v the Netherlands (1985) 8 EHRR 235.

There are four express protected interests under Article 8:

(1) private life;
(2) home;
(3) family;
(4) correspondence.

Most actions have been decided under the right to respect for private life, although they may involve incidental claims to respect for home, family or correspondence.  The requirement to provide “respect” for all four interests has reinforced the positive obligations on states, rather than simply requiring them to refrain from interfering with these interests. Thus it is that in recent years increasing attempts have been made to spread Article 8’s remit to social and economic claims on the welfare, like access to medical treatment and drugs; it is fair to say that the courts have, in general, resisted such claims by repeatedly holding  that Article 8 is simply not engaged (that is, cannot be invoked) in relation to the provision of medical resources.

Nor does the State had a “positive obligation” under Article 8 to enable a sufferer from severe mental bipolar disorder to obtain, without a prescription, a substance enabling him to end his life without pain and without risk of failure: Haas v Switzerland (2011), an application which was made following the success of the Diane Pretty case under Article 2 (see our repost on this case).

A far more effective series of claims have been made under Article 8 to overcome immigration controls when children are involved in removal or deportation decisions; see our posts on children in detention centres, in deportation decisions and the effect of this particular aspect of Article 8 in immigration matters generally. The European Court of Justice has weighed in with its own application of Article 8 ECHR to stress the obligation on national authorities to take into account the right to respect for family life in immigration matters:see C-127/08 Metock v Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform [2008] ECHR I-6241.

Due to changing mores and advances in reproductive technology, the concept of “family” has changed dramatically since Article 8 was first drafted. Ties between family members need no longer be biological, and biological ties themselves can emerge from the laboratory . Same sex parents, surrogate versus birth mothers, carers rather than parents should all theoretically, lay claim to family bonds under Article 8. But the Strasbourg Court has shrunk from extending the scope of Article 8 to protecting the right of transsexuals to adopt (Frette v France (2004) 38 EHRR 21; although see EB v France, 22 January 2008, where the Grand Chamber ruled that Article 14 had been breached in conjunction with Article 8 when the government refused authorisation for adoption to the lesbian applicant ).

The privileging of marriage as part of the right to family life has been a source of great misery as human traffickers have sought to profit from the loophole in immigration controls by importing potential “wives” into the United Kingdom. Efforts by the government to eradicate the practice of forced marriage by refusing to grant visas to non-resident spouses under a certain age have been frustrated by the courts upholding Article 8 (see R (on the application of Quila and another) (FC) (Respondents) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] UKSC 45 and our post on the matter ). In May 2016 the Grand Chamber the Grand Chamber found that the refusal to grant family reunion to a Ghanaian couple in Denmark violated Article 14 in conjunction with Article 8, overruling its previous position if there is any lack of obstacle to spouses living elsewhere, the state refusing entry is not in breach of Article 8: see Biao v Denmark [2016].

Like Articles 9, 10 and 11 Article 8 (2) contains specific exceptions to the right guaranteed in the first paragraph. These limitations may only be justified if they are “in accordance with the law” (Artciles 9,10 & 11 require measures to be “prescribed by law”) and, in all cases, “necessary in a democratic society”. The following analysis of these qualifications will apply equally to Articles 9 10 and 11 to follow.

In Accordance with the/Prescribed by law

This means three things:

(1) there must be a specific legal rule or regime which authorises the interference;
(2) the citizen must have adequate access to the law in question (The Sunday Times v United Kingdom (1979) 2 EHRR 245);
(3) the law must be formulated with sufficient precision to enable the citizen to foresee the circumstances in which the law would or might be applied (Malone v United Kingdom (1984)7 EHRR 14).

Necessary in a Democratic Society

Even if a measure has been taken in pursuit of one of the legitimate interests listed in the second paragraph of Articles 8, 9 10 or 11, the measure must be tested for “necessity.” The Court has held that the notion of necessity implies two things:

(1) that an interference corresponds to a pressing social need;
(2) that it is proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued.

The Doctrine of Proportionality

In order for a measure to be “necessary in a democratic society”, it must respond to a “pressing social need” (The Sunday Times v United Kingdom (1979) 2 EHRR 245). This involves the test of proportionality. If a measure has been adopted which infringes an individual’s Convention right in some way, it will not be considered disproportionate if it is restricted in its application and effect, and is duly attended by safeguards in national law so that the individual is not subject to arbitrary treatment (MS v Sweden (1997) 3 BHRC 248).

Margin of Appreciation

Depending on the aim pursued, the Court grants Signatory States a certain leeway in adopting the measures it considers most appropriate to pursue that aim. In the area of public morals, for example, State authorities have been considered to be in a better position than the Court itself to determine restrictions on the sale of pornography (Handyside v United Kingdom (1976) 1 EHRR 737) or the legal recognition of transsexuals (Rees v United Kingdom (1986) 9 EHRR 56).

It was been asserted by some commentators in the United Kingdom before incorporation of the Convention that the doctrine was simply an interpretative tool specific to the international supervision of human rights and had no place in domestic arrangements for the protection of human rights. Others argue that it is analogous to the doctrines of justiciability that limit domestic adjudication of policy matters or decisions relating to allocation of scarce public resources, and that the adoption of a margin of appreciation doctrine is merely a change in form rather than substance. Such an approach has received the support of the House of Lords, in the words of Lord Hope in R v Director of Public Prosecutions, ex parte (1) Sofiane Kebeline (2) Ferine Boukemiche (3) Sofiane Souidi [1999] 3 WLR 175 :

In this area difficult choices may have to be made by the executive or the legislature between the rights of the individual and the needs of society. In some circumstances it will be appropriate for the courts to recognise that there is an area of judgment within which the judiciary will defer, on democratic grounds, to the considered opinion of the elected body or person whose act or decision is said to be incompatible with the Convention.

See however the analysis of a similar principle – “deference” – in R(N) v Home Secretary (March 2003) and Lord Sumption’s eloquent attack on it in his 1914 lecture to the Administrative Bar Association.

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High Court quashes guidance on deporting EEA nationals who are sleeping rough

15 December 2017 by Charlotte Gilmartin

R (On the Application of Gureckis) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 3298 (Admin)

Read the judgment here: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2017/3298.html

Recent years have seen a significant increase in the number of people sleeping on the streets in Greater London — the figure has more than doubled since 2017.[1] This includes people of all nationalities, and a significant number of EEA nationals.

The High Court has quashed policy guidance which set out the circumstances in which “rough sleeping” would be treated as an abuse of EU Treaty rights, rendering an EEA national liable to removal if this would be proportionate .

Factual Background

The Claimants were two Polish nationals and one Latvian national against whom removal notices had been served. They challenged the legality of the policy on the basis that it was contrary to EU law.

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Freedom of expression: is filming the police in public a fundamental right? – Hugh Tomlinson QC

31 August 2011 by Guest Contributor

As a number of recent cases have made clear, the filming of policing activity in public places is a vital method of holding police to account.  But there have been continuing tensions between the police and photographers over filming police activity. In January 2010 there was a protest in Trafalgar Square by photographers against the use of terrorism laws to stop and search photographers.  A campaign called “I’m a photographer, not a terrorist” was launched to protect the rights of those taking photographs in public places.

However, although Guidance issued by, for example, the Metropolitan Police has made it clear that

Members of the public and the media do not need a permit to film or photograph in public places and police have no power to stop them filming or photographing incidents or police personnel.

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BC Supreme Court grasps the nettle in right to die case

21 June 2012 by Rosalind English

Lee Carter, Hollis Johnson, Dr. William Shoichet, The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and Gloria Taylor v Attorney General of Canada (2012 BCSC 886) 15 June 2012 – read judgment

Interest in the “locked-in syndrome” cases currently before the High Court runs high.  We posted here on the permission granted to locked-in sufferer Tony Nicklinson  to seek an advance order from the court that would allow doctors to assist him to die under the common law defence of necessity.

He is also arguing that the current law criminalising assisted suicide is incompatible with his Article 8 rights of autonomy and dignity. The other case before the three judge court involves another stroke victim who is unable to move, is able to communicate only by moving his eyes, requires constant care and is entirely dependent on others for every aspect of his life. (Philip Havers QC of 1 Crown Office Row is acting for him)

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The paradox beneath Strasbourg’s French veil ban decision

16 July 2014 by Matthew Flinn

S.A.S v France (Application no. 43835/11) – read judgment

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has rejected a challenge to a French law which prohibits the wearing of veils in public. The ruling is, of course, of great political and media interest, but it is also significant from a legal perspective. In a lengthy and detailed judgment, the Court ultimately accepts that, as a matter of principle, a government can legitimately interfere with the rights of individuals in pursuit of social and cultural cohesion.

On 11^th April 2011, Law no. 2010-1192 came into force in the French Republic. Subject to certain limited exceptions, the law prohibits anyone from wearing any clothing which conceals their face when in public places, on pain of a 150 euro fine, and/or compulsory citizenship classes. Whilst phrased in general terms, the most obvious effect of the law, and its clear intention, is to ban the niqab (a veil that leaves only the eyes visible) and the burka (a loose garment covering the entire body with a mesh screen over the face).

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Article 2

1 June 2010 by Rosalind English

Article 2| Right to life

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Art.2 European Convention on Human Rights provides as follows:

(1) Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.
(2) Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of this Article when it results from the use of force which is necessary:
(a) in defence of any person from unlawful violence.
(b) in order to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained.
(c) in action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrection.

The corresponding provision in the EU Charter is also Art.2 which reads:

(1) Everyone has the right to life.

(2) No one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed.

The right to life is not absolute, although the limitation carved out in the first paragraph of the ECHR provision ceases to apply now that the UK has ratified Protocol 6, in pursuit of its undertaking so to do in the Human Rights Act 1998 , and the death sentence has been abolished altogether from the statute books. The UK cannot now reintroduce the death penalty in future, except for acts committed in time of war or imminent threat of war.

Art.2 is relevant to several aspects of State power:

1. The use of  lethal force by the State through the mobilisation of its police and armed forces to combat terrorism, fight crime and quell civil unrest;
2. The prevention and prosecution of homicide
3. Legislation relating to abortion; and
4. The supply of medical services and the allocation of healthcare resources.

The right to respect for life, following the case of Diane Pretty v United Kingdom, does not include the right to die with dignity, although this element is considered in this context together with the right to physical integrity and privacy under Article 8.  This extended implied right under Article 2 does not oblige the state however to enable a sufferer from severe mental bipolar disorder to obtain, without a prescription, a substance enabling him to end his life without pain and without risk of failure: Haas v Switzerland (2011).

While special duties are owed by the authorities to protect the lives of prisoners from harm, including suicide, the Court has observed that the measures imposed should take into account principles of dignity and self-determination, indicating that oppressive security measures may go too far. In Keenan v UK ECHR 2001, where the applicant’s son committed suicide in his cell, the Court found that the prison authorities were aware of his mental problems but had taken reasonable steps by placing him in prison hospital care and under close watch when he showed signs of suicidal tendencies. There had been no reason on the day of the incident for the authorities to suspect that an attempt was likely.

In addition to the express obligation on states to respect the right to life, the Strasbourg Court has developed an implied duty on states to investigate suspicious deaths or disappearances. Critics suggest that this maneouvre was motivated by the court’s desire to avoid having to delve into “complicated and murky factual assessments” in the proliferating case law involving Turkish violations of Kurdish rights:

Extending human rights to create additional procedural obligations on states served as a cost-efficient substitute for a lack of evidence to deal with a growing docket of cases. The court has legislated its way out of its own internal problems. (Dominic Raab, The Assault on Liberty, Fourth Estate, London 2009)

Be that as it may, the domestic courts have not been slow to respond to Strasbourg expansionist tendencies in the interpretation of Article 2.  The right to life now engages the responsibility of the government for the deaths of soldiers in combat, whether they have been killed by enemy troops or illness if their demise is due to inadequate equipment or medical care (Smith v Secretary of State for Defence, [2010] UKSC 29).

Article 2 applies in countries where the Convention theoretically has no reach. In Al-Skeini v UK  (2012) the Court said that the killing of Iraqi civilians by British troops during the British occupation of the Basra region fell within the United Kingdom’s jurisdiction because Her Majesty’s army was exercising authority and control there.

More recently however, the Divisional Court has strongly endorsed the doctrine of combat immunity and appeared to set its face against the recent rise in claims against the MoD by soldiers deployed abroad and their next of kin (R(Long) v Secretary of State for Defence [2015] EWCA Civ 770.

As far as the Strasbourg Court is concerned, there is no right to life that can be asserted in opposition to abortion; a foetus is not protected under Article 2. However, in Vo v France [2004] ECHR 326, (2005) 40 EHRR 12 , where the mother lost the foetus due to a mistake by a doctor, the Court considered that it was neither appropriate nor desirable to decide whether the unborn child was a person for the purposes of Article 2. In Calvelli and Ciglio v Italy, where the applicant complained that the state had failed to prosecute a doctor whose negligence allegedly caused the death of his baby, the Court held that the state’s positive obligation under Article 2 to protect life required regulations in place to safeguard patients’ lives and to provide an independent judicial system which can determine the cause of death of patients in the care of the medical profession. The provision of a civil remedy which could allocate responsibility and award damages fulfilled this obligation on the state.

The failure to provide an effective examination of the circumstances of the death of the applicant’s wife in childbirth disclosed a breach of Article 2: Bryzkowski v Poland, 27 June 2006.

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Assisted suicide and the right to private life: the enduring repercussions of Nicklinson – Stevie Martin

22 March 2017 by Guest Contributor

In the almost three years since the Supreme Court delivered its reasons in Nicklinson (in which a majority refused to issue a declaration that the blanket ban on assisted suicide in s 2(1) of the Suicide Act 1961 was incompatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (‘ECHR’)), similar questions of compatibility concerning analogous bans have been considered by courts in Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. Additionally, California and Colorado have introduced legislation permitting physician-assisted suicide (taking the total to six States in the US which permit physician-assisted suicide), France has introduced legislation enabling patients to request terminal sedation, and Germany’s Federal Administrative Court this month handed down judgment confirming that the right to self-determination encompasses a right of the ‘seriously and incurably ill’ to, in ‘exceptional circumstances’, access narcotics so as to suicide.

Given news of a new challenge by Noel Conway to the compatibility of s 2(1) of the Suicide Act with Article 8 (the application for permission to review was heard by the Divisional Court yesterday with judgment reserved), it is, then, a propitious time to re-examine a particularly dubious aspect of the majority’s reasoning in Nicklinson namely, its characterisation of the declaratory power, not least given the potential for such reasoning to deleteriously affect the new challenge.
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Genetic testing of children up for adoption

27 April 2013 by Rosalind English

Y and Z (Children), 25 April 2013 [2013] EWHC 953 (Fam) – read judgment

Having children is a lottery. No judge or court in the land would sanction the regulation of childbearing, however feckless  the parents, unsuitable the conditions for childrearing, or unpromising the genetic inheritance.

Adoption on the other hand is stringently regulated, set about with obstacles for prospective parents, and strictly scrutinised by an army of authorities backed up by specialist family courts and a battery of laws, statutory instruments and guidance papers. Usually the filtering is in one direction only: the suitability of the parents to the child or children up for adoption. But sometimes it goes the other way, and this case raises the fascinating and somewhat futuristic question of whether children’s chance of finding a suitable home might be increased by genetic testing.

The circumstances were somewhat exceptional here, since the local authority had ascertained from the biological father  of the two young boys in question that they might have a chance of inheriting a rare genetic disorder of the central nervous system. Huntington’s Chorea is caused by a single gene mutation on chromosome IV and causes damage of the nerve cells and areas of the brain which in due course leads to severe physical, mental and emotional deterioration. Anyone whose parent has the disease is born with a fifty per cent chance of inheriting the gene. Anyone who inherits the gene will, at some stage, develop the disease. 
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The right to privacy and medical records – Seonaid Stevenson

18 February 2016 by Guest Contributor

WF, Petitioner [2016] CSOH 27 – read judgment

The Outer House of the Court of Session has ruled that the right to privacy and medical confidentiality under Article 8 of the Convention entitles complainers to be heard and have legal representation before any orders are made for recovery of their medical records.

Factual circumstances and legal background

The petitioner, (‘WF’) was a complainer in domestic abuse proceedings against the accused. The accused sought to recover all medical, psychiatric and psychological records relating to WF from 2007 to 2014. WF sought legal aid to allow her to be represented at the hearing concerning the recovery of these documents, arguing that her rights under Article 8 of the Convention entitled her to participate. The application to the Scottish Legal Aid Board was refused as there was no provision in the relevant legislation or regulations for legal aid to be granted for such proceedings. A further application was then made to the Scottish Ministers, under s.4(2)(c) of the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986, which allows legal aid to be granted in circumstances not covered by the rules. This application was also refused on the grounds that WF did not have the right to appear or be represented at the relevant hearing. The key issue which came before the Sheriff was therefore whether Article 8 gave the complainer the right to appear and be represented at the hearing concerning disclosure of her medical records.
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Ban on fertility treatment does not breach Convention, says Strasbourg

10 November 2011 by Rosalind English

S.H. and Others v. Austria (Application no. 57813/00), 3 November 2011 – read judgment

The Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg Court has rejected complaints from two infertile couples that the Austrian prohibition on using medically-assisted procreation techniques did not breach their right to respect for family life under Article 8 or the right to found a family under Article 12.  The choices the legislature had made reflected the then current state of medical science and the consensus in society and it had therefore not overstepped its (wide) margin of appreciation in this area.

This refusal to allow infertile couples the protection of the Convention against restrictive state legislation comes as some surprise in the light of Strasbourg’s readiness to insist that governments should allow prisoners access to artificial insemination (AI): Dickson v United Kingdom (2006).  Why should infertile couples be denied the anxious scrutiny accorded to those behind bars? This giving with one hand and taking with another simply confirms the cynic’s view of the court as being deeply partisan in its approach. And it is far from clear why governments should be allowed such leeway in an area so central to the ECHR’s concerns: the Court itself has said that where a particularly important facet of an individual’s existence or identity is at stake, the margin allowed to the State would normally be severely restricted. The matter of procreation and the genetic relatedness of one’s offspring must surely belong to this “core” area of life.
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The right to education, human rights and school exclusions

14 January 2011 by Guest Contributor

The European Court of Human Rights has handed down judgment in Ali v United Kingdom (Application no. 40385/06, 11 January 2011). The decision is the final instalment of the litigation which culminated at the domestic level in the judgment of the House of Lords in Ali v Lord Grey School [2006] UKHL 14.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ECtHR has upheld the conclusion of the HoL (Baroness Hale dissenting in part) that no violation of the A2P1 right to education occurred.  However, in certain significant respects the reasoning of the ECtHR diverges from that of the HoL. In particular, it provides important guidance on: (i) the circumstances in which school exclusions are compatible with A2P1 rights; and (ii) the content of the right to education.

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This way, that way, the other way? Latest debate on Human Rights Act – Brian Chang

23 October 2015 by Guest Contributor

Those who want change should have to make the case for it, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC challenged her fellow panellists, at a recent event jointly organised by the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law and British Institute of International and Comparative Law, and hosted by Bindmans. The panel was one of the most stimulating contributions of the year to the debate over the proposed repeal of the Human Rights Act and its replacement with a British Bill of Rights, featuring contributions from three members of the 2012 Commission on a Bill of Rights, a number of comparative perspectives including one from Australia, and even a call for what appears to be a written constitution.

Professor Jeffrey Jowell gave some preliminary remarks to set the scene for the panel discussion. He noted that the Bingham Centre had not adopted any particular position on the proposed repeal of the Human Rights Act (HRA) and its subsequent replacement with a British Bill of Rights, since the Conservative Government had not yet published its proposals. He then quoted a recent  report that the Government was planning to publish its consultation paper within the next two months, and then seek to legislate rapidly to get the British Bill of Rights on to the statute books by the end of next summer. Given this, he felt that the time was therefore right to hear a spectrum of views on the subject to assist the Bingham Centre in forming its position.
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