27th March 2023
Here is a playfully mischievous tweet from the Guardian:
Daily Mail parent company invokes Human Rights Act to stop naming of journalists https://t.co/DFUIhYgLXk
— The Guardian (@guardian) March 27, 2023
And how we can – and perhaps should – laugh at the irony of a newspaper that has attacked the Human Rights Act relying on that same Act when it is in its interests.
It is not even the first time – here is Associated Newspapers seeking to rely on the ECHR in respect of the Leveson Inquiry and here is Associated Newspapers seeking to rely on the Human Rights Act in 2006.
And there is nothing – absolutely nothing – wrong with Associated Newspapers seeking to do this.
For that is what the law of fundamental rights is for: they can be relied by (or sought to be relied on) by anybody.
There are useful rights for the media generally and journalists in particular under the Act.
And in other jurisdiction – notably the United States – the media and journalists are conscious of the fundamental rights they can rely on and can point to provisions that protect those rights.
The tragedy of the Human Rights Act is that despite it providing rights on which the media and journalists can rely, it is also despised in many in the media and journalism.
There is a mismatch between the reputation of the Act and the substance of the Act.
In the United States it would be unthinkable – even now – for any media organisation to call for the repeal of the First Amendment.
If only media organisations in the United Kingdom were as protective of Article 10 of the ECHR.
But there is a disconnect.
The newspaper in-house lawyers know about these provisions, and they will not hesitate to rely on the ECHR and the Human Rights Act when they can.
But across the office floor, there is not attachment to Article 10.
And that is part of the tragedy of the Human Rights Act.
Over twenty years since it took effect, it is still seen by so many in politics and the media as a partisan ornament rather than a practical instrument.
So entrenched is the dislike for the legislation it is tempting to support repealing the Act and replacing it with a new statute with exactly the same provisions but with a far less contentious name.
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“There is a mismatch between the reputation of the Act and the substance of the Act.”
The fact that its ill-deserved reputation has in large part been created by the “journalists” who are relying on it only enhances their hypocrisy.
You don’t give a name to the mutually exclusive positions on human rights taken by the Daily Mail (i) when defending itself and (ii) when attacking others, notably immigrants, minorities, the unemployed, single mothers, the sick and other down-trodden.
Isn’t is hypocrisy? At best it’s cognitive dissonance.
A right is only a right in any meaningful sense if it a)creates a corresponding obligation and b) that obligation is adhered to or provision made to give effect to the corresponding right. The right to an education only makes sense if there is educational provision or the right is meaningless.
The UN charter of Human Rights enshrined the right of every human being to two or three weeks holiday….hmm try explaining that to an African subsistence farmer.
My point is that often it is not the rights that people despise, it’s the corresponding obligations those rights impose on the people who despise the rights.
How much would it cost to give every African subsistence farmer two weeks holiday? Rights impose obligations and in the case of Associated Press it is frequently the obligations they create that are despised, unless of course the right confers some advantage to them via the obligations it creates on others.
Well, Article 24 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says “Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.”
I don’t see anything about “two weeks” there.
And who has the corresponding obligation? The preamble says that “every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance”
So every person and every government in every state is charged with securing universal rights and freedoms for all.
As an aspiration set out in a political and ethical statement, that is admirable, but you don’t have to go to Africa to know that the idea of a right to “periodic holidays with pay” is problematic for any self-employed person.
We certainly live in a “tragic” time when naming “Human Rights” is contentious.
The Tories just haven’t got over the French Revolution yet, that’s all. Not the metres and kilos, nor la Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen. Just rename the act The Roast Beef of Old England Act, same contents, it’ll be fine.
Shouldn’t your post also use this as yet another example of the childishness/deliberate disinformation that characterises so much of what passes for ‘political’ debate in the UK?
My favorites are still the continuing accusations of lack of ‘democratic accountability’ from a country with an unelected head of state, an unelected head of government, an unelected upper chamber, a gerrymandered electoral system that consistently gives large majorities to minority parties etc… You couldn’t make it up!
It’s not just the Daily Mail. Don’t forget that Owen Paterson is also relying on human rights legislation despite being an advocate of “braking free”.
The Human Rights Act 1998 is, by design, weak.
Article 13 ECHR (the right to an effective remedy) has been left out of the formally protected rights in order to maintain parliamentary (read ‘executive) supremacy and Section 6 of the Act is the biggest sieve I have seen in any legislation, ever.
No need to even refer to Henry VIII powers granted to the executive by Section 10…
Your last paragraph contains the key.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer – nicely trolling the PR antics of one Dominic Raab – could simply declare, on his first day in office, that he will immediately fulfil Labour’s manifesto pledge to bring forward a “British Bill of Rights”.
It would contain one brilliant paragraph: to change the name of the Human Rights Act to “The British Bill of Rights”.
“In the United States it would be unthinkable – even now – for any media organisation to call for the repeal of the First Amendment.”
Why might that be, do you think? Could it be that placing it in a formal document called a “constitution” gives it more gravitas? Makes it more permanent than a simple “Act”?