Equally Ours has submitted a detailed response (pdf) to the Human Rights Act reform consultation. This response has been developed with invaluable input from our members.
Our starting point in response to the government’s consultation is that the Human Rights Act is working effectively and there is no evidenced-based case to replace it.
The Human Rights Act is an essential tool that empowers ordinary people to challenge governments and other public bodies when they make unlawful or harmful decisions, and hold them to account. This is at the heart of our democracy.
Our evidence shows that the proposed changes to the Human Rights Act will have a negative impact on equality across all protected characteristics and in some instances may be discriminatory.
The consultation also has an inherent contradiction at its core: it states that the Government will retain all existing rights under the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act 1998 while putting forward proposals to reduce the scope of the rights protected and limit the ability of those experiencing human rights abuses to hold those responsible to account.
