DOMINIC Raab’s controversial plans to scrap the Human Rights Act are dead in the water after he left government in ignominy, according to reports.
Raab, who had served as both deputy prime minister and justice secretary, quit the Tory cabinet in April after the conclusion of an inquiry into bullying allegations against him upheld two complaints.
He has been replaced in the top Ministry of Justice role by Alex Chalk, who is not minded to continue with Raab’s “Bill of Rights Bill”, which would have scrapped and replaced the 1998 Human Rights Act.
“[Raab’s] departure sounded the death knell for the bill of rights,” a government source told The Times. “It won’t be coming back, or at least not in any form that resembles the current bill.”
However, there were suggestions that elements of the bill may be taken, repurposed, and passed through alongside other legislation.
Joanna Cherry KC, who is also the SNP MP for Edinburgh Southwest, told The National that the repurposing of parts of the bill was an “ominous threat”.
This is good news & vindicates the recommendations of @HumanRightsCtte except for the ominous threat that elements of the bill are to be repurposed in other legislation. We have already seen this in the #IllegalMigrationBill. https://t.co/8bMG46dAMX
— Joanna Cherry KC (@joannaccherry) May 8, 2023
She said: “This decision is good news and in line with the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Human Rights that the bill should be scrapped.
“However, the ominous threat that elements of the bill are to be repurposed in other legislation is not an empty one. We have already seen this with the Illegal Migration Bill’s plans to direct the court to ignore the Human Right Acts in certain cases, and also to ignore interim orders made by the Strasbourg court.
“Both these aspects of the bill contravene the UK’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.”
Joshua Rozenberg KC, who the UK Government has called the “pre-eminent legal analyst of modern times”, wrote in the Law Society Gazette last week that Raab had “implicitly conceded” that his bill of rights was going nowhere after he put some of its provisions into the Victims and Prisoners Bill.
Rozenberg wrote: “Chalk promised the Telegraph he would consider ‘every aspect’ of Raab’s Bill of Rights Bill ‘with very great care’ before deciding what to do. That bill is clearly going nowhere.
“Raab himself implicitly conceded that the game was up when he reintroduced some of its provisions in the Victims and Prisoners Bill – particularly the obligation to ‘read down’ prison-related legislation where that’s possible. There would be no need for these provisions if the Bill of Rights Bill had any chance of becoming law.”
Bob Neill, the Tory MP and chair of Westminster’s justice committee, also hit out at the bill. He told The Times: “I think we frankly wasted time on this daft idea of a British bill of rights. And that took up more bandwidth than was necessary and I hope that will quietly die a death because I don’t think that was a good idea.”
