Cambridge University Amnesty International (CUAI) organised a panel discussion on Tuesday which explored the relevance of the Human Rights Act in modern Britain, and the possible consequences of its replacement by a British Bill of Rights.

The event, entitled “The Human Rights Act – What’s All the Fuss About”, was attended by a group of about 30 students, academics, lawyers and Cambridge residents. They were addressed by a panel comprising Dr Alexander Williams, a lecturer in law at Durham University; Simon John, a retired medical negligence lawyer; David Verghese, an undergraduate English student at Robinson College; and Luke Gittos, a solicitor and legal editor of Spiked, an online libertarian magazine. 

Rachel Logan, Law and Human Rights Programme Director at Amnesty International UK, was also billed as a fifth panel member, but was unable to attend the event due to illness.

The discussion centred largely on the influence of the Human Rights Act on the British judiciary, in light of the Conservative Party’s 2015 manifesto pledge to replace the Act with a British Bill of Rights. 

The Human Rights Act, passed in 1998, incorporates into UK law the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights, which was drafted in the aftermath of World War II. Under the Act, an applicant who believes their Convention rights to have been breached can have their case heard in the UK courts, rather than in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Gittos, however, claimed that the Act was a “grotesque distortion”. Citing the so-called ‘snooper’s charter’ bill, which extended the scope of UK state surveillance, he said the Act had been guilty of “inversions and erosions of applicants’ rights.”

Verghese said that the issue lay not with the Convention itself, but in the “flawed” decisions of “activist judges” in Strasbourg. He highlighted the case of Abu Qatada, the radical Muslim cleric whose deportation caused a lengthy dispute between UK ministers and the European courts, as an example of where British courts had been “hampered” by the Act. 

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Additionally, he questioned how effectively the Act could function when it drew such little public support, following “vitriolic” campaigns for its repeal in the right-wing media.

In defence of the Act, John said that it was necessary in order to “fill in the gaps” of the British judicial system, such as when the families of the Hillsborough disaster were “denied justice and denied truth.”

However, Williams warned that the EU referendum, and the ensuing regime change in Downing Street, had only amplified the uncertainty of the Act’s future. He speculated that Theresa May might choose to “throw red meat to more moderate Tories” by keeping the Act, or might alternatively submit to increased enthusiasm for its repeal.

On the involvement of Cambridge students in the debate around the Act, Verghese told Varsity: “I think Cambridge students in general are very, very engaged, often perhaps slightly dogmatically so.”

Speaking to Varsity, Chair of CUAI Eleanor Hegarty said that they had foregrounded the human rights debate in order to “thrust it into the public conscience.” She said they sought to “give people both sides of the story so they could make up their own mind.”