PCS boss urges unions to 'fight like never before'

antrobus

BobQ wrote: »

Strictly they cannot abolish the ECHR. They just abolish the Human Rights (Act) so that the ECHR has no force in the UK.

Not sure if you were being pedantic or simply unaware of the Conservative Manifesto commitment.

I believe that is you that is unaware of what is involved.

The UK is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights. There are (as far as I'm aware) no plans to unsign.

What the Human Rights Act 1988 did (inter alia) was to impose the duty on UK courts to interpret legislation in terms of the Conventions's 'fundamental freedoms'. What the Conservatives propose doing is breaking that formal link, and replacing it with a duty to interpret legislation in terms of their 'Bill of Rights'.

This does not mean that the "ECHR has no force in the UK". The UK will still be signatory to the Convention and the European Court of Human Rights will still have jurisdiction. It just means that individuals will have to go to Strasbourg to have their cases decided.

Generali

It all seems a bit silly really.

Fight like never before. You going on strike (and not getting paid) or not?

antrobus

Generali wrote: »

It all seems a bit silly really.

Fight like never before. You going on strike (and not getting paid) or not?

I expect that they will have a Day of Action. There will be a big march through London. Everyone will have banners and Russell Brand will make an appearance.

Someone will post a thread here on MSE complaining that the event was ignored by the media.

Someone else will post a thread here on MSE claiming that the event signifies a groundswell of popular discontent and that Revolution is imminent.

Pennywise

I live in a very impoverished area of the North, and round here, it's nurses, teachers, firemen and policemen who live in the "posh" estates. Nothing wrong with that, they deserve a decent place to live, but their wages are generally higher than other professions such as accountants and solicitors and probably double the wages earned by other mid-ranking semi skilled/professional workers in the area - average wage round here was about £18k last time I looked. Just shows that national wage bargaining is out of date and needs replacing - over a period of time, essential worker wages need to rise in the expensive areas and pegged in the cheaper areas, so as to eventually be relative to average wages in different areas.

BobQ

antrobus wrote: »

This does not mean that the "ECHR has no force in the UK". The UK will still be signatory to the Convention and the European Court of Human Rights will still have jurisdiction. It just means that individuals will have to go to Strasbourg to have their cases decided.

I stand corrected on the exact proposals.

But the impact is to remove protections from individuals and make it more difficult/expensive for individuals to obtain justice.

It is much the same as reducing access to legal aid or making it more expensive to enforce employment rights. All are mean minded ways of deterring people from seeking justice.

michaels

BobQ wrote: »

I stand corrected on the exact proposals.

But the impact is to remove protections from individuals and make it more difficult/expensive for individuals to obtain justice.

It is much the same as reducing access to legal aid or making it more expensive to enforce employment rights. All are mean minded ways of deterring people from seeking justice.

Even if a British bill of rights was identical to the rights conveyed by the EHCR I still think we should have our own one. Imagine if a European equivalent of the !!!!!phile Network came to hold power in Europe and decided to round down the age of consent to the European minimum (13 years?) and it being made a 'human right' so that the UK would not be able to maintain its own opinion on what that age should be.

Perhaps an extreme example but the point being shouldn't the UK population via the democratic process be able to determine what its laws should be?

CLAPTON

BobQ wrote: »

I stand corrected on the exact proposals.

But the impact is to remove protections from individuals and make it more difficult/expensive for individuals to obtain justice.

It is much the same as reducing access to legal aid or making it more expensive to enforce employment rights. All are mean minded ways of deterring people from seeking justice.

In what way as the ECHR been of benefit to the UK?

Votes for Prisoners?
Foreign Rapist can't be deported?
Does the 'right to a family life' mean anything of value that wasn't already the situation in the UK?

BobQ

michaels wrote: »

Even if a British bill of rights was identical to the rights conveyed by the EHCR I still think we should have our own one. Imagine if a European equivalent of the !!!!!phile Network came to hold power in Europe and decided to round down the age of consent to the European minimum (13 years?) and it being made a 'human right' so that the UK would not be able to maintain its own opinion on what that age should be.

Perhaps an extreme example but the point being shouldn't the UK population via the democratic process be able to determine what its laws should be?

In reality it is not that simple I believe. The UK HRA ensured that the UK courts and public bodies acted in accordance with the ECHR. If we remain a signatory to the ECHR, the proposed repeal of the UK HRA means that either the UK must accept the decisions of Strasbourg judges (in which case what have we really gained) or if we ignore them we put ourselves in the position of ignoring a Human Rights Court. What does that say about us when we criticise breaches of Human Rights elsewhere?

There are also other issues since repealing HRA it may affect the Good Friday Agreement and Devolution legislation.

The whole idea of the HRA was that UK courts would interpret ECHR in the UK in the first instance. Repeal means that they will only interpret Conservative Human Rights. The UK Government will then decide if they ignore international legal rulings on HR.


http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7193/CBP-7193.pdf

BobQ

CLAPTON wrote: »

In what way as the ECHR been of benefit to the UK?

Votes for Prisoners?
Foreign Rapist can't be deported?
Does the 'right to a family life' mean anything of value that wasn't already the situation in the UK?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/european-convention-on-human-rights-what-has-it-ever-done-for-us-9773928.html

CLAPTON

BobQ wrote: »

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/european-convention-on-human-rights-what-has-it-ever-done-for-us-9773928.html

why don't you think that retention of DNA samples should be decided by UK parliament?

why shouldn't there be a DNA database of all people in the UK?