Boris Johnson was accused of “ransacking” Brits’ human rights tonight as he blocks fights against his government being heard in court.
Tory ministers will change the law to stop High Court judges ruling on some human rights cases, under a ‘Bill of Rights’ unveiled in Parliament on Wednesday.
They will also change the law to let the UK ignore some decisions by European judges. That will include ones like the statement last week that saved asylum seekers from deportation to Rwanda.
Campaign group Liberty said the changes will be a “power grab” while the Law Society warned they are a “lurch backwards for British justice”.
Lawyers warned they will “create an acceptable class of human rights abuses in the UK” - where violations cannot be challenged despite being illegal.
The new law will make it harder for wronged Brits to take legal action against the government in human rights cases, by introducing a new “permission stage”.
Before people can bring a full case in the High Court on human rights grounds, they will have to show they have suffered a “significant disadvantage”.
Separately, the Bill will also say the European Court of Human Rights does “not always need to be followed by UK courts”.
It comes after the ECHR issued an interim statement that stopped Britain’s first removal flight to Rwanda last week.
The government says the Bill will stop such interim findings being binding on the UK in future, with the UK Supreme Court instead having the last word.
The government insisted the changes will stop “trivial human rights claims from wasting judges’ time and taxpayer money”.
Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said they will “inject a healthy dose of common sense”, adding: “These reforms will reinforce freedom of speech, enable us to deport more foreign offenders and better protect the public from dangerous criminals.”
But Liberty Director Martha Spurrier said: “Let’s be clear: this Bill is a power grab by a Government that has no respect for our rights.”
She said the Bill will “ransack our rights” and make the government “untouchable”, adding: “From the families of Hillsborough victims to military veterans, people use the Human Rights Act every day to stand up for their rights and get justice.
“Under the Government’s plans, it will become much harder for people - including disabled people and survivors of violence against women and girls - to access justice.”
Law Society of England and Wales president I. Stephanie Boyce warned it showed a “disregard for the checks and balances that underpin the rule of law”.
She added: “The bill will create an acceptable class of human rights abuses in the UK… It is a lurch backwards for British justice.
“Authorities may begin to consider some rights violations as acceptable, because these could no longer be challenged… despite being against the law.
“Overall, the Bill would grant the state greater unfettered power over the people, power which would then belong to all future governments, whatever their ideologies.”
James Wilson, Deputy Director of Detention Action, said Tory ministers were trying to “rewrite the rules” a week after humiliation by European judges.
He added: “Dominic Raab's plans to undermine our rights to a private and family life threaten us all.
“But especially the children deprived of a parent by his Government's mass deportations policy.
“We're insisting that Dominic Raab allow Parliament full and proper scrutiny of his dangerous plans, before they can be written into our law books."
The Bill will also make it easier to deport foreign criminals with relatives in the UK, despite the human right to a family life.
They will have to prove a child or dependent would come to “overwhelming, unavoidable harm” if they were deported.
Meanwhile the Bill will seek to protect government plans to use more separation centres for extremists, despite legal challenges based on the right to socialise.
The Ministry of Justice also says it would boost press freedom by introducing a stronger test for courts to consider before ordering journalists to disclose their sources.
But Shadow Justice Secretary Steve Reed said: “ Labour is proud that the Human Rights Act has allowed millions access to justice, protect victims of crime, and ensure our loved ones get the care they need.
“But this Conservative ‘Bill of Rights’ con will take those rights away, preventing people with health problems from objecting to Do Not Resuscitate Orders being placed on them in hospital without their consent, block women from forcing the police to investigate cases of rape, and will stop victims of terrorist atrocities and major disasters like Hillsborough from seeking justice.
“This is a Government more interested in picking fights and sowing division with this fraudulent bill of rights than tackling the cost of living crisis.”
