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[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.]
Sure. Be happening.

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Ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the 2014 Tanner Lecture on Human Values.

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It's a great pleasure to see such a large and excited audience.

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And it's like, you don't have to excuse our 2014 speaker Chubby Checker.

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Bharti chubby is the Chancellor of Corpus University and also the Director of Liberty, formerly known as the National Council for Civil Liberties,

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uh, which is the organisation that campaigns, uh, to protect civil liberties and to promote human rights.

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Yeah, we certainly do. Or at LSC, um, the school's about 110.

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In 1994, he started work as a barista for the Home Office.

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Shortly after that, and as her career has blossomed ever since.

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Uh, she raises the offer on radio, television and, um,

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she has recently been described by The Times newspaper as perhaps the most effective public affairs of the past 20 years.

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The greatest honour, however, was reserved, uh, for, uh, channel four,

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who held a poll of the most inspiring political figure of, uh, the 20th century.

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Uh, she finished very close to Oliver.

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Recently, he has been recently involved with the legislative body as independent Member of Parliament.

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But tonight she is speaking on the subject of human rights as human values.

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She spoke. Thank you.

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Where, after all, the universal human rights between.

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In small places close to home. So close and so small that they can't be seen on any maps of the world.

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Yes, they are the world of the individual person.

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The neighbourhood he lives in, the school.

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College. He attends the factory, farm or office where he works.

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Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal frequency without discrimination.

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Unless these words have meaning that they have little meaning anywhere without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home,

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we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.

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What was Eleanor Roosevelt in 1958, in a speech celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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It's always a daunting privilege for a scruffy activist to come to the smart academy,

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and in particular, to give a lecture that's been delivered previously by so many landed minds.

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In fact, the word lecture is slightly counterintuitive to me. Um, on the record.

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Francis campaigned on it tonight with a preference for occupants and slaves and even call to arms over anything that might seem to be remote,

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theoretical, or, dare I say it, preachy. She performed its purpose.

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But this lecture series concerns human values, and that's a subject irresistible to me.

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I've spent my adult life in an attempt to argue, as Mrs. Roosevelt did, so much more effectively.

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She, of course, was the grandmother of universal human rights.

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But to mean anything, fundamental rights and freedoms have to flourish not just in the courtroom,

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but in the living and bedrooms, the classroom, newsroom, boardroom and cabinet room and on the streets.

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And if you threaten them anywhere, you threaten them everywhere.

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Um, today in Liberty's 80th year as director of Liberty, I seek to argue not just that this is the only way to make the law effective,

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but we need to do this out of respect for and protection of the ultimate in universal human values, because that is what human rights are.

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Let me first set up my mission and voice in context. Liberty.

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You've heard the National Council for Civil Liberties was formed in 1934.

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You might think that that here and this one couldn't be more different from.

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True enough. DNA has yet to be discovered, let alone taken and stored and profiled.

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And we are yet to enjoy the first public television broadcast, let alone closed circuit or reality TV.

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The world had yet to be shrunk by easy airline travel, let alone the internet.

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Yet it was a time of great economic uncertainty and for many, hardship.

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And yet the far right was on the rise all over Europe and certain newspapers, newspapers still in business.

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I'll leave you to guess who they are, Ron. Regular headlines expressing horror at refugees coming into this country from Eastern Europe.

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Sound familiar? The particular spur to Libertys founders, however, was scenes of hunger marches from the north of the country,

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making a particularly brutal response on arrival in London's Hyde Park.

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Yes, they were dubbed up by the Metropolitan Police. Apologies for the legal jargon.

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Indeed, this had been engineered by the placement of undercover officers used as agent provocateur amidst otherwise peaceful

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demonstrators and any one who's read reports in recent months and years of similar police abuses in recent years,

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particularly in the environmental movement, might be forgiven for thinking that something's changed.

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But many remain the same.

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So a small group of concerned writers, lawyers, activists and academics met in the crypt of Saint Martin in the Fields church in Trafalgar Square,

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and they wrote a speech to say they would blog or tweet or something, but that they didn't have that you understand.

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So they wrote a letter to what was then the Manchester Guardian newspaper.

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They had been shocked at such a crushing of peaceful dissent, and they vowed to defend the entire spirit of liberty.

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That number included Clement Attlee there of Britain, Edith Somerville, H.G. Wells and Harold Laski,

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and the key instigator, Silvius Casady and her partner, my original predecessor, Ronald Cage.

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But the list goes on.

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The membership organisation, of which I am caretaker today is the one that they founded out of that same movement to defend a right to protest that,

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in fact didn't actually exist in English law. You see, for all its celebrated significance as a document from 1215,

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you'll find no mention of freedom of expression or indeed of association or many

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other now cherished rights in the Magna Carta that we will commemorate next year.

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However, in an even more significant moment in the history of our fundamental rights and freedoms,

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um, these rights would begin to emerge, for it's very much in the post-World War Two moments.

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That freedom struggles ancient, more contemporary and anti-colonial come together.

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The notion of human rights as truly universal values, recognising and protecting everything that it means to be human.

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And it's, of course, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights that represents the aspirational values of Democrats like the left

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and right politics and so many people of all great world faiths and people of no religious conviction at all.

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Even its preamble is instructive, I think, for present purposes.

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Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom,

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justice and peace in the world.

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Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts that have outraged the conscience of mankind.

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The advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief in freedom from fear,

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and what has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people.

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Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse as a last resort to rebellion against tyranny and oppression,

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that human rights should be protected by the rule of law.

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It goes on, of course, but notice the positioning of legal enforcement of human rights.

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Whilst it comes in the third stanza as an essential alternative to conflict and rebellion.

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It's the values themselves, we're told, that provide the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world and which, when disregarded,

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result in the fall at the just outraged the the conscience of mankind, so that the declaration is,

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of course, a statement of values in being inspirational and not a legal document.

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It's given forth in international law by a number of regional instruments,

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including our own much maligned these days, European Convention on Human Rights,

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the drafting and implementation of which was such an important part that Winston

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Churchill's post-war legacy might remind some modern conservatives of that occasionally,

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if you know any of. It's this vital instrument and its incorporation into domestic UK law by way of the Human Rights

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Act of 1998 that has become so denigrated in parts of our policy and the media in recent years.

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In fact, it's covered conservative policy to repeal the Human Rights Act, perhaps in favour.

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We're told of a UK Bill of rights with common sense, about which no detail has yet been provided.

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And there are even threats to withdraw or seriously reserve from the European Convention itself.

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But before addressing the various criticisms that sceptics make of human rights values in general and the European Convention,

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the Echr and the Human Rights Act in particular, it may be worth unpacking their contents just a little.

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The various enumerated rights now enshrined in law can be summed up in my view, with three little words dignity, equality and sense.

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And whilst all human rights might, I suppose, be described as some form of recognition and provision for human dignity.

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A salute without quotation suggests the most important of these is actually equality.

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Remember, she said, every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination.

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So why? Why equality? I think because even the greatest human rights sceptic has little beef with his own rights and freedoms.

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It's all the people that present the problem.

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You might say that my speech is free and yours a little more expensive, at least until we get to the Q&A part of.

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Furthermore, very many human rights necessarily require qualification or balance in their application,

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not least to protect the rights and freedoms of other people. So the principle of equality works as an essential safeguard present,

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preventing us from forsaking for others protections that we would cherish for ourselves and those closest to us.

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It asks us to consider, to consider, perhaps even love.

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This is too strong a word. Other people's children, and not just our own.

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In a in legal speak, we call it non-discrimination in human speak, which, as you've heard, I've been learning for the last ten years.

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We call it empathy. It's the opposite of hypocrisy and selfishness.

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And it explodes the myth of human rights as some kind of greedy sense of personal entitlement rather than social solidarity and and glue.

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It's also the way in which the ballot box and the courtroom can work together to

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prevent the disenfranchised and other vulnerable groups being left out or behind,

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or sacrificed on some high altar as the greater good.

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From these high level ideals of dignity, equality and fairness, fairness in the procedural sense of the hearings and so on.

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All the various articulated and human and enumerated rights and freedoms,

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like later articles of the Universal Declaration, of course, contain what we call social, economic and cultural rights.

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Rights to work and rest, housing, health care, cultural participation, and so on.

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Some younger democracies, most notably post-apartheid South Africa,

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has experimented with enshrining those rights in constitutional documents with legal enforceability.

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In the UK, of course, there's no single overarching constitutional document,

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and social and economic rights are essentially delivered by the welfare state.

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Civil and political rights, however,

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are ultimately protected by the European Convention on Human Rights that's now incorporated by the Human Rights Act.

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But that's not to say that we didn't have a complex system of detailed legal regulation around, for example, Social Security entitlements.

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It's just to say that the courts have not, for the most part,

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been delegated the role of measuring parliamentary and executive performance against the ultimate standard of a human right to adequate provision.

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You might say that social, economic and cultural rights have largely been delivered to the people of Britain by democratic politics and civil society,

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whilst the ultimate backstop protection for civil and political rights has been the law.

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It seems to me there's an obvious logic to this. Given the particular design and competence of polyphonic politics when it comes to debating

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and allocating scarce resources and the mostly binary nature of court based debate,

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however, the obvious bridges between the way we protect Socio-Economic rights on the one hand and

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civil and political rights on the other are discrimination law and legal aid provision.

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So discrimination law gives hard edge legal protection to vulnerable people in the economy who may be disenfranchised,

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disenfranchised or marginalised by democratic politics.

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And legal aid makes civil and political rights real and effective, rather than theoretical and illusory.

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So ultimately, let's be clear about this.

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It is the courts which are the most effective final guardian of the rights in the Echr in the face of abuses of power.

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Unsurprisingly, therefore, those with power to abuse sometimes resent the courts.

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But given that judges do not ultimately command armies, such resentment when it festers and develops into contempt threatens the rule of law itself.

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The rule of law is ultimately only a rule of recognition, grounded like the human rights it protects in respect rather than coercion.

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We've discussed that there is places where human rights must live, but where where do they come from?

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One longstanding criticism is, of course, that they are a fiction.

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Jeremy Bentham nonsense on stilts.

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Why do we how can we talk about the violation of rights that simply don't exist in societies where the political community,

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however large or small, has chosen not to bestow them?

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I think there are essentially two answers to this. The first often finds stays on there, not exclusively with people of religious faith.

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It's rooted in the notion that human beings are inherently special,

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either because they're created in the image of God, or because they have some special dominion over the earth,

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or to be a little less spiritual simply because of their advanced capacity for ingenuity, creativity, empathy, altruism, suffering, etc.

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In any event, the argument is that each and every human life is precious and should be protected in its inherent beauty.

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And the various fundamental rights and freedoms are a reflection of that, and provide protection for everything that it means to be human.

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However, this foundation is far from practical and instrumental enough for everybody's taste,

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particularly in the face of a very different and all too unequal lives that people who live the world experience and practice.

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So my second argument is one of democratic necessity and regulation, and goes to the heart of how democracy is built and sustained.

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That just as we've seen free markets eat themselves without sufficient regulation and enforcement.

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Democracy two requires a basic code by which to live and stay alive.

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Even the most popular majority government might quickly descend into something quite different.

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Without hard edge rules in favour of further elections and freedom of conscience and speech,

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and many other civil and political rights that must be protected by the law.

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This kind of dissent from democracy into tyranny has happened all over the world and in our lifetimes.

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Which brings me to the first common criticism of human rights values,

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thinking and instruments that they somehow protect individual but not collective interests.

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The first response to that is the collectives are made up of individual human beings,

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and the second is that human rights recognise human beings as the social creatures that they are.

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So yes, the right to life conscience and the right against torture, slavery,

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arbitrary detention and and to a third of these rights is very much focussed on protecting individuals from oppression,

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but rights to private and family life, to expression and association and against discrimination.

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These are real manifestations of the way that we come together in families,

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face political and trade union and other communities, not least to advance our shared interests.

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Certain. The concept of what is necessary in a democratic society is introduced repeatedly in the European

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Convention on Human Rights as a legitimate limit on the qualified rights that it contains,

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for example, property, privacy, free expression, and so on.

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And this demonstrates that the document is a framework of social, not selfish, values.

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When some people argue as they do.

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I hear this all the time that we must somehow choose between social and economic advancement on the one hand, and that civil liberties on the other.

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It's perhaps worth taking our memories about this example and going back to our homes.

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A guest arrives for the weekend. Did we ask them to choose between joining in with the eating or speaking at dinner?

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Do we offer a bedroom for the night on condition that the guest agreed to be watched at all times by CCTV?

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Clearly not.

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And I think that those who say that there's a stark choice between liberty and equality should put that ridiculous false dilemma to a slave.

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The second criticism, and one again that I hear frequently poses a question is why we speak of human rights and not of human responsibilities.

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This is a graph of considerable antiquity, and one in which Tom Paine once described,

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during his observations of debates over the French Declaration as demonstrating in mind that has reflected, but not reflected in us.

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His response was that the Declaration of Rights is by necessary reciprocity, also one of obligations.

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Now, of course, under the law, on the human rights side, the primary responsibility for protecting people's rights and freedoms,

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including positively and actively, not just by way of restraint from interference.

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That primary obligation lies with the government and with other public authorities.

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However, this is a framework of values as well as of law.

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And so there's no doubt that, for example,

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the conviction against inhuman and degrading treatment and the respect for privacy must have an effect on my behaviour as an ethical person.

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Furthermore, the state's positive obligation to deliver these protections will often extend to a duty to

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create a local civil and criminal law governing the behaviour of those within its jurisdictions,

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got to have adequate criminal law, and to protect people from offences against the person, data protection law and so on.

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So the my call assigned rights may well be limited when more bad behaviour renders this necessary

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renders as necessary and proportionate to protecting the rights and freedoms of others.

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So proportionate surveillance of a criminal suspects is of course permitted,

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as is imprisonment after a fair criminal trial which respected the presumption of innocence.

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But this is not a simple contract.

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There's no sense in which every right has an equal and opposite responsibility, a breach of which will lead to a complete loss of your human rights.

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That has to be, in the end, some modicum of respect, even for those who hurt others and perhaps even lost respect for themselves.

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So convicted criminals may lose their liberty and face collateral limitations on their privacy and association,

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but such limitations must be justified and proportionate.

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It's hard to see how depriving them of books, or maybe even the vote meets that test,

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so that the absolute right against torture, slavery and the death penalty remain intact even for their.

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Finally, however, given the rainforests of civil, criminal and regulatory obligations governing every minute aspect of our daily lives,

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it hardly seems excessive that there should be just a small bundle of 15 or so

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obligations owned by those who govern towards those who they're supposed to serve.

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Another common face is that human right hand.

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Um. Human rights in the hands of unelected judges become somehow anti-democratic,

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and they undermine the overarching principle of the British Constitution, namely, parliamentary sovereignty.

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So first response to that lies in the foundational argument that, um, that human rights and the rule of law, far from being anti-democratic,

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provide a vital framework for the survival of democracy and prevented, as I said, from descending into dictatorship or mob rule.

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However, there's a further response in the exquisite constitutional compromises contained in the Human Rights Act itself.

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Now the act operates like this.

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Firstly, it provides that, as far as it's possible to do so, all other legislation must be read compatible with human rights.

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This is a crucial departure from the previous tradition of literal interpretation of statutes.

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Secondly, where public authorities are not included, ministers have, uh,

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discretion have discretionary power that must be exercised in conformity with the human rights in the act.

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And the fact that the courts are themselves regarded as public authorities for the purposes of the act means that the common law,

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too, must be revisited and developed in a human rights compliant manner.

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However, where it's simply not possible to read an Act of Parliament compatible with the convention rights,

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because the will of Parliament was just too clearly of the opposite intention.

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This was the case with the famous the famous case of um of the Belfast Internment Regime after nine over 11.

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The ultimate sanction for our highest courts, including the Supreme Court, is an ingenious device called a declaration of incompatibility.

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And this. This statement informs Parliament and the public of the way in which the statute defends,

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but it has no effect on the continuing enforceability and legality of that Act of Parliament.

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This is the ultimate, if you like, in judicial soft power.

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It works by persuasion only as a as a shaming sanction.

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And it's up to Parliament. Of course, Parliament is, as we know, too often dominated by the executive to respond if and as it sees fit.

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So values Trump hard edged legal sanction, even in the design of Britain's much maligned modern Bill of rights.

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So that's what our Human Rights Act is. It's our modern Bill of rights in this country.

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Now, some would say that that kind of soft kind of constitutional compromise, um,

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and the way that it contrasts with bills of rights the world over which, um,

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constitutional courts with power to strike down even primary legislation that

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that that contrast makes the Human Rights Act something of a toothless tiger.

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But I disagree because I think compromise goes some way to protecting the judiciary from politicisation, and, conversely,

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may even embolden judges in the face of the worst human rights abuses, such as internment, torture during the war on terror.

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So, uh, in the absence of an entrenched written constitution, it does preserve the overarching theory of our system.

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Call it theory. You can call it fairytale, but they call it parliamentary sovereignty.

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What can I tell you? So when senior politicians, including I sorry to say, our Prime Minister, expressed feelings of actual notion.

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Yes. Notion. Uh, the human rights decisions of judges, for example, in the context of the blanket ban on prisoner voting.

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My advice is that they should either develop stronger stomachs or run to the bathroom and not the Parliament chamber.

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Another recurring criticism is that human rights values, perhaps because they are so universal, somehow undermine national sovereignty.

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Now, the heart of this is, of course, the rather toxic xenophobia in our current politics that is going to work against a convention

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and the Strasbourg human rights court that have the word European in their titles once more,

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however, the argument fails to bear scrutiny.

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Uh, I suppose if all internationalism, whether it's values or cooperation, is inherently undermining national sovereignty, then the criticism stands.

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But the manner in which universal human rights values are delivered by the European Convention on the Human

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Rights are placed primary responsibility for their application upon national government and domestic courts.

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So the European Convention on Human Rights is a treaty to which the UK government is signatory.

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And indeed it was the British government that was so instrumental in its creation in 1950,

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and even judgements of the Custodian Court of the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg are for or against the British government.

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Um, our government retains responsibility again by way of international treaty law.

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Nothing directly affected in the UK government remains responsible for implementing

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those judgements and the manner in which they ought to be to be implemented.

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The human rights side, which of course brought into force by the Blair government in 2000 and it goes even further to protect

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and enhance national sovereignty and domestic ownership as the application of these new rights values.

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Firstly, it allows interpretation,

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application and adjudication of the rights and freedoms to take place here in every Magistrates Court and Employment Tribunal,

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as well as all the higher courts, all the way up to the Supreme Court.

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And it doesn't leave these decisions to be made just in an international court in Strasbourg.

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Of course not for the demise of legal aid.

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This should allow for wider and swifter access to justice than could ever be afforded by a court responsible for the whole of the Council of Europe,

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including dealing with human rights abuses in somewhat troubled Baltic states and former Eastern Bloc.

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Crucially, the injunctions the UK courts and tribunals under the Human Rights Act.

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What they're told to do is to take account of, not be bound by, but to take account of judgements of the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

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They also told to take account of human rights, uh, case law and jurisprudence from the time to the world.

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So domestic courts in particular are able to depart from previous judgements of the Strasbourg court.

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They can come up with new interpretations of human rights values.

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Now, of course, um, you could argue that a British court disagrees with previous decisions of the Strasbourg court.

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Um, the victim just takes their case on to Strasbourg.

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So what's the point of disagreeing?

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Well, of course, if the domestic jurisprudence is compelling enough, Strasbourg may change its mind, may change approach and change tack.

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So just as the Human Rights Act creates a dialogue between domestic judiciary and legislature, between the judges and parliament.

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But why is that declaration of incompatibility that I told you about?

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It creates a second dialogue between domestic courts and international ones.

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And this is a dialogue, a constant dialogue about how to interpret and apply these human rights principles.

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And of course, these various rights and freedoms are reminiscent of those to be found in peaceful bills of rights all over the world.

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So Winston Churchill and his Lord Chancellor, David Maxwell Fyfe,

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and their lawyers were instrumental in the drafting of the document that can be said to link Britain not just to Europe and the Commonwealth,

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but by way of the values contained therein to, to, to values that are truly universal all over the world.

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Which brings me to the basest and most common criticism, namely,

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that these values are simply not British enough, perhaps because they are too shared and too universal.

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To this, I can only reply that the habeas corpus, which finds its modern incarnation in article five the right against arbitrary detention,

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is no less precious when translated from the original Latin into, dare I say it, English, or indeed every other language of the free world.

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But I think the underlying criticism is perhaps not with the nationality of the rights,

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but with the nationality of the people who are to enjoy their protection first,

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before dealing with the choice between human rights and those that might be restricted, for example, to free born Englishmen.

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It might be worth remembering the nature of some of the freedoms that we're talking about.

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So article two of the convention protects the rights of life.

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Of course, being ethical rather than medical or spiritual,

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it's it can't grant life as a last thing that does place a positive duty on states

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to protect people in their jurisdiction and to investigate untimely deaths.

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My legal colleagues at Liberty have used this provision to great effect in securing

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investigations and inquests on behalf of the grieving families of victims of crime and neglect.

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Article three is the right against inhuman and degrading treatment and torture,

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and it's one of the very few absolutes in a framework that must allow flexibility in negotiation as well as bright lines.

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It was used by the stress the court some years ago now against the common law defence of reasonable chastisement under English

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common law that was employed to protect parents from pet parents who perpetrated grievous bodily harm against their children,

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and they were getting acquitted using a defence of reasonable chastisement.

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It was also used by women rape victims to force a change in criminal procedure in this country that previously

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allowed defendants to cross-examine their victims in person for days on end at the Old Bailey and elsewhere,

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including cross-examining them to their sexual history in a manner that created the sensation of being raped all over again.

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And yes, it's been used to impugn the practice called extraordinary rendition of terror suspects,

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a euphemism for kidnap and torture in freedom's name at the height of the war on terror, the war of terror.

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Another Orwellian euphemism if ever there was one article for its the right against slavery and servitude.

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Now the slave trade we know is outlawed.

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Well over 200 years ago, until 2009, there was no criminal offence under English law of holding someone as a slave.

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The argument went that threats and violence and locked doors were all covered by offences against the person forcing and false imprisonment,

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but sometimes the means of enslavement are more subtle.

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What about the mentally vulnerable or trafficked person who lives as a slave without knowing better, or for fear of deportation,

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or fear of recriminations against family back home,

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or in circumstances where the threats or repeated common assaults are just too old or otherwise impossible to prove.

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It was only with the aid of article four of the convention that, again,

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my Liberty colleagues and crossbench peer Baroness Lola Young were able to persuade the Brown government in its final days to

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agree to accept an amendment to its own legislation to make it a criminal offence to hold someone in slavery or servitude.

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Or to require them to perform forced or compulsory labour.

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As I mentioned previously, article five as a convention is the right to liberty and against arbitrary detention,

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and it places vital limits on both the purposes and procedures for lawful incarceration.

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It provided the philosophical inspiration for Liberty's parliamentary campaigns against 90 day and 42 day pre-charge detention for terror suspects,

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and it is also the reason, I think, what the current inadequate legal regime by which so many elderly and vulnerable people

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are effectively detained by their carers without independent or legal scrutiny,

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will not, in the end, sustain.

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I see some people rail against human rights for suspects and prisoners, but there are unlikely suspects and prisoners everywhere.

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This is the value that prevents the knock on the door and the disappearance in the night.

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That is the hallmark of despotic regimes the world over and throughout history.

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Article six is the right to a fair trial and crucially, in the case of criminal trials, to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

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It's been much denigrated as a box of courtroom lawyers tricked by so many politicians and media moguls until,

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of course, they found themselves at the dock in recent years. In fact, I'd argue that a fair hearing and the presumption of innocence in particular,

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can be seen as vital societal values that have shaped our way of living well beyond the courtroom.

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Indeed, so many authoritarian measures connected with blanket police powers and surveillance and data mining in particular,

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might be seen as an attack on the notion that we are all essentially innocent until there is some proof,

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or at least reasonable suspicion to the contrary.

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Which brings us to the rights respect for private and family life, and our homes and correspondence as enshrined in article eight of the convention.

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And this has in recent times provided the first as a positive constitutional privacy protection in our law

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against the burgeoning technological opportunities for surveillance offered by the internet in particular.

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Obviously, the political paradigm that you must have heard is that the innocent have nothing

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to fear from being constantly monitored in both and public and intimate lives.

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Article eight imposes the requirements of proper justification, lawful authority and proportionality on the watches and, in my view,

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impinge the kind of non-statutory secret surveillance of entire populations that was revealed by Edward Snowden's

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whistleblowing on the NSA for its own intelligence activities and for the often arrogant secret state,

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seems instinctively to demand no scrutiny for itself and less privacy for us.

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It's easy, perhaps, to trivialise personal privacy next to, for example, torture and imprisonment.

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It can seem like a bourgeois luxury, like twitching net curtains.

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But I think this is to misunderstand a vital freedom capable of changing the whole flavour of a society by its prevalence, or indeed by its absence.

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If you don't understand, then go and see that wonderful German film, The Lives of Others.

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It's also completely intertwined with so many of our other civil and political rights.

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How, for example, can you have free elections without secret ballots or fair trials without confidential counsel?

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How can you have freedom of conscience or association without some notion of the private sphere?

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And even though it's true that freedom of expression is sometimes in tension with privacy,

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a journalist knows the importance of protecting confidential sources.

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And very many important commentators from the early days of the printing press to these days of the internet.

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I found greater courage to speak under the cloak of anonymity.

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Article nine protects freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.

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It's the right to a face of your choice. The right to know.

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Thanks. And perhaps even more importantly, the right to be a heretic within any particular faith community.

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When combined with and balanced against equality rights in article 14 of the convention and elsewhere,

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it also helps us to negotiate some of the difficult fault lines around religious conviction and equality in modern society.

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It demonstrates that human rights protect even the human rights sceptics who,

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one might hope, would become just that little bit more understanding as a result.

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So the British Airways first class lounge attendant should have been allowed to wear her cross, absent any functional necessity to the contrary.

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But local authorities should not be forced to accommodate homophobic staff motivated by their religious conviction,

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to the point of seeking to discriminate between which members of the public they will and will not serve in the course of their employment.

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Sometimes the the conscientious objector should just leave the Army.

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This is not conscript service. Article ten provides Britain's first expressed positive rights to free speech,

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though it is, it's more honest than some of its international counterparts.

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In acknowledging on its face that even this most vital of democratic freedoms is not unlimited.

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As with privacy in article eight and indeed freedom of association in article 11,

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it imposes substantial intellectual and legal discipline on those who seek to limit the rights.

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And as is too often forgotten, there is no countervailing right not to be offended.

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Sometimes people seek the one rights that is non-existent and incredibly dangerous the right not to be offended.

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But that says it's a right and not a duty.

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And if human rights are a framework of values as well as law, self-censorship for fear of prosecution or persecution, is it?

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It's a terrible thing. But but self-censorship and the avoidance of causing fear or unnecessary anxiety or offence to

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one's neighbours might simply be regarded as kindness and politeness that allows alone to bestow

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until overly intrusive legislators with the icebergs and their crossbows and all the rest of

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it infantilized by rendering irritation and the antisocial or otherwise unlawful behaviour.

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Last, but by no means least, and this indicated at the beginning,

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the non-discrimination provision in article 14 at the convention on the Human Rights Act provides the key to the human rights kingdom.

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It's not a free standing right to equality, but it provides protection against discrimination in the application of all the other convention freedoms,

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and it's provided a vital value with which the courts have,

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for example, impugned the post 911 internment to foreign national terror suspects in circumstances

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where their British counterparts continued to live their lives at liberty.

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It's the provision that ensures that these are human rights and not merely citizens privileges.

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In an uncertain world of nationalism and xenophobia.

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Why should internationalism be the preserve of multinational corporations,

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trading blocks of organised criminals, and not also enjoyed by ordinary people with their shared human values?

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Our own Parliament has just passed a law that would allow the Home Secretary to make Britons with no other nationality stateless once more,

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in the name of combating terrorism.

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This is an all too familiar reminder, as the meagre protection of citizenship compared with the status of humanity,

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to replace our human rights side with any Bill of rights based on nationality alone would be the path to Guantanamo Bay,

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where the United States government notoriously intends non American enemy combatants without charge or trial.

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And it seems to me that this is a very strange moment to me to be making that

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particular pilgrimage for Edward Snowden's revelations once more demonstrate

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the way in which governments exploit weak domestic protections for non-nationals to spy on each other's populations and then swap the material.

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In short, this is an ever shrinking, interconnected world, and our choice is Democrat.

398
00:47:28,890 --> 00:47:36,420
Seeking our dignity and that of future generations is whether to seek the protection of being human everywhere,

399
00:47:37,020 --> 00:47:42,210
or the constant vulnerability of being forward nearly everywhere on the globe.

400
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:57,910
I know which I prefer. Five years ago, the late great jurist Lord Tom Bingham addressed Liberty's 75th anniversary conference,

401
00:47:59,230 --> 00:48:06,010
and after listing some of these values that I've attempted to set out, he left us with the following thought.

402
00:48:09,460 --> 00:48:13,510
Which of these rights, I ask, would we wish to discard?

403
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:19,660
Irony isn't trivial. Superfluous. Unnecessary.

404
00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:29,620
Is done on the British. There may be those who would like to live in a country where these rights are not protected.

405
00:48:31,240 --> 00:48:35,650
But I am not of their number, nor am I.

406
00:48:35,680 --> 00:49:09,300
Thank you for listening. It's a mixture of roughly 35 degrees to, uh, take a few questions down.

407
00:49:09,630 --> 00:49:14,610
Uh, so if you have questions so that you can hold your hand up, I might say through a large number.

408
00:49:14,820 --> 00:49:23,040
It's like a, uh, a group of questions together. Uh, give me the opportunity to respond, and then I must have a roving mike.

409
00:49:23,370 --> 00:49:28,380
Uh, I think Jesse will cover the whole sequence. So let's shake your hands.

410
00:49:29,220 --> 00:49:40,130
Um, we sort of, like, brought back. Thank you.

411
00:49:40,340 --> 00:49:46,400
You helpfully pointed to the fact that the rights have to be enjoyed in relation to other rights enjoyed by other people.

412
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:50,690
The one that threatens the white side of me is the right to family life.

413
00:49:51,500 --> 00:50:01,250
Because it does seem to me that in some families, women can be invisible and oppressed, and their individual rights somehow disappear,

414
00:50:01,250 --> 00:50:08,060
subsumed into something sometimes linked with religion, something just in terms of that's the way we like it round here.

415
00:50:08,600 --> 00:50:15,950
And I want to know how we can deal with that without being judged to be offensively intrusive into other people's way of life.

416
00:50:17,870 --> 00:50:21,680
Thank you. George. Go ahead. That will take us like a great.

417
00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:30,180
Well, we'll thank you for that because, um, I think that the rights to respect for private and family life should do that.

418
00:50:30,200 --> 00:50:33,350
Should it should comfort you and not frighten you.

419
00:50:33,380 --> 00:50:42,980
As a feminist who's concerned about the degradation, um, of women and violence against women because actually, um, the, the underlying um,

420
00:50:43,130 --> 00:50:51,530
the underlying philosophy of this framework is that there is equal protection for everyone and they're wrong and that these, um,

421
00:50:51,530 --> 00:50:56,570
and that these values are universal and, and the way in which, um,

422
00:50:57,050 --> 00:51:04,640
they have been interpreted and employed is to protect the individual woman and not to and not to protect some,

423
00:51:04,670 --> 00:51:12,890
um, some construct of, uh, of a religious or other community that says the law, the writ of the law does not run here.

424
00:51:13,130 --> 00:51:20,870
Um, for example, we're going to have, um, forced marriage or, um, FGM or violence against women.

425
00:51:20,870 --> 00:51:24,259
So the, the way in which a combination of article three,

426
00:51:24,260 --> 00:51:30,559
that's the right against inhuman and degrading treatment, um, article four, the right against slavery article.

427
00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:33,560
Article eight is it's not just the right to family life.

428
00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:40,860
It's a, it's a, it's a right to my private, um, family life, which is that which has been interpreted by the board,

429
00:51:40,910 --> 00:51:45,980
by the courts in Britain and in Strasbourg to be a notion of personal autonomy.

430
00:51:46,520 --> 00:51:51,739
So the way in which these rights have come together and of course, article 14 that says no discrimination.

431
00:51:51,740 --> 00:51:56,120
So you can't have a writ that runs in one community and not another.

432
00:51:56,240 --> 00:52:06,530
You can't have the police saying, well, um, we'll, um, we will enforce, uh, laws against rape or domestic violence in,

433
00:52:06,710 --> 00:52:13,340
in one community and not another, because that would be that would offend the provision of the non-discrimination provision in article 14.

434
00:52:13,340 --> 00:52:19,489
So I guess what I'm saying is that, um, I've got colleagues that have done this work that have brought, um,

435
00:52:19,490 --> 00:52:23,290
that have brought cases on behalf of women in particular communities where the,

436
00:52:23,600 --> 00:52:26,600
you know, where the patriarchs say, you know, this is just how we do things.

437
00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:32,389
We'll know, because, you know, I guess what I'm saying is these are universal values.

438
00:52:32,390 --> 00:52:39,080
And they and then, you know, they can't be they can't be traded and they belong to the they belong to the individual human beings

439
00:52:39,410 --> 00:52:44,150
and including the women in that which you're you're so concerned and as I've tried to suggest,

440
00:52:44,540 --> 00:52:50,900
um, they create rights for victims to have positive protection from the state.

441
00:52:51,110 --> 00:52:54,950
And this is, I'm afraid, why some people don't like human rights.

442
00:52:54,950 --> 00:52:58,460
They would like a very negative notion of liberty, which just leave me alone.

443
00:52:58,470 --> 00:53:02,629
Overweening state. And we do want the overweening state to leave us alone.

444
00:53:02,630 --> 00:53:03,890
And we haven't done anything wrong.

445
00:53:03,890 --> 00:53:11,060
But sometimes more positive protection, including this criminal offence, for example, that we that, you know, that we, um,

446
00:53:11,480 --> 00:53:18,410
that we achieved because we all knew that the UK government was in breach and not having positive protection,

447
00:53:18,740 --> 00:53:21,770
you know, whether it's for rape victims or for traffic people.

448
00:53:26,450 --> 00:53:30,410
Take 2 or 3 questions and answers. There are more.

449
00:53:35,780 --> 00:53:39,010
Could I ask you questions very briefly and see how things are?

450
00:53:41,440 --> 00:53:45,320
My question relates to articles one and 13.

451
00:53:46,380 --> 00:53:49,390
Um, as you as you said earlier.

452
00:53:49,800 --> 00:54:00,730
Um, the Human Rights Act incorporated the convention in the UK law, but articles one and article 13 are missing from the Human Rights Act.

453
00:54:01,270 --> 00:54:07,030
And article one is the one which essentially says all of the other articles will be made available.

454
00:54:07,480 --> 00:54:17,770
And article 30 is the one which says if one's rights are violated by someone acting in an official capacity, one is entitled to an effective remedy.

455
00:54:18,220 --> 00:54:21,220
Um, do you have any comments on that?

456
00:54:22,060 --> 00:54:28,770
Um, should I take the group? Yes we have. Discussed in writing the.

457
00:54:32,980 --> 00:54:39,280
It's going to be a pretty eclectic group, I suspect, because you mentioned Edward Snowden on a couple of occasions,

458
00:54:39,820 --> 00:54:49,240
and I wondered what you thought needed to happen in Russia before they embraced the universal human rights that you described so eloquently.

459
00:54:50,140 --> 00:54:59,130
Okay. Fantastic. We'll take the next one that. Thank you very much.

460
00:54:59,140 --> 00:55:06,740
Um, you talked about the dialogue between the UK courts and the European Court, and you mentioned Lord Bingham and and of course, the, uh,

461
00:55:06,880 --> 00:55:15,640
Spain's judgement in the other case, on the mere principle, the idea that UK court should nearer the judgements of the European Court of Human Rights.

462
00:55:15,820 --> 00:55:20,170
I was wondering, to what extent do you feel these two ideas come into tension?

463
00:55:20,380 --> 00:55:26,590
The notion of having a dialogue and following, um, taking into account literally the the judgements.

464
00:55:26,860 --> 00:55:31,030
And what do you think? What do you agree that, uh, that might have to be nuanced?

465
00:55:31,360 --> 00:55:35,139
Yeah. Thank you. Um, yeah.

466
00:55:35,140 --> 00:55:37,959
Fantastically challenging and eclectic question.

467
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:47,110
So the first one was, why is it that articles, one answer to all the etc. are not to be found in the human rights.

468
00:55:47,110 --> 00:55:54,399
Um, so these are, these are the two provisions in the convention that say everybody, everybody should have human rights protection.

469
00:55:54,400 --> 00:55:57,760
And that includes article 13, an effective remedy.

470
00:55:58,060 --> 00:56:04,030
The reason why they're not the the argument went and I worked in the Home Office when they when the Human Rights

471
00:56:04,030 --> 00:56:10,570
Act was drafted and policy the analysis was that the Human Rights Act itself provides the effective remedy.

472
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:17,380
So that's why you don't say the the treaty says, um, member states shall provide an effective remedy.

473
00:56:17,590 --> 00:56:22,570
And then the UK government and the UK Parliament comes along and says, here is our effective remedy.

474
00:56:22,810 --> 00:56:27,160
And, and and it's called the Human Rights Act. So do you see what I mean.

475
00:56:27,160 --> 00:56:32,260
That's that's the analysis. Now whether you agree some people would disagree that that's been effective and

476
00:56:32,260 --> 00:56:35,680
you make this might maybe what you're getting at because you may say you're wrong.

477
00:56:35,920 --> 00:56:39,280
A declaration of incompatibility is not an effective remedy.

478
00:56:39,610 --> 00:56:46,020
If, for example, um, a parliament effectively a government chooses to flout, um,

479
00:56:46,060 --> 00:56:50,700
such a declaration and, um, you know, that's, you know, that's an all in a that's, that's a document.

480
00:56:50,710 --> 00:56:58,270
But this but that was the thinking at the time that, you know, Parliament has decided how to go about, um,

481
00:56:58,270 --> 00:57:04,390
implementing the convention in the UK and giving effect to the rights and freedoms

482
00:57:04,840 --> 00:57:09,940
it has tried and how to incorporate and the Human Rights Act mechanism itself,

483
00:57:09,940 --> 00:57:16,059
with the problem of interpretation and the um, and the injunction on public authority to,

484
00:57:16,060 --> 00:57:21,459
I think to and particularly on the declaration, I think that is the effective remedy.

485
00:57:21,460 --> 00:57:27,310
And then you agree or disagree with that, that that is the reason for that admission of article 213 that you get.

486
00:57:27,670 --> 00:57:33,309
Uh, um, the point is that, you know, that, you know, the the question about Snowden, Russia,

487
00:57:33,310 --> 00:57:37,690
you know, you say, so there I am banging on about wicked old American, wicked old Britain.

488
00:57:38,050 --> 00:57:42,130
And, uh, what is be saying that, you know, Mr. Putin is my human rights hero?

489
00:57:42,310 --> 00:57:46,390
No, no, I'm not saying, um, no, I'm not saying that.

490
00:57:46,430 --> 00:57:51,669
And and you know what I mean? I mean, I perhaps didn't make clear enough.

491
00:57:51,670 --> 00:57:56,140
I mean, one of the reasons why you could never just like we should never, um,

492
00:57:56,620 --> 00:58:01,120
scrap the Human Rights Act and leave it to our people in this country to spend.

493
00:58:01,420 --> 00:58:07,450
Now, I remember, um, I remember working in government before we had a human mind.

494
00:58:07,450 --> 00:58:14,820
Science. Okay. Uh, so you couldn't you couldn't vindicate these fundamental rights, um, the English law.

495
00:58:14,830 --> 00:58:23,290
You would have to take a case to Strasbourg, and that's going to take you six years is don't send me back to Colombia,

496
00:58:23,500 --> 00:58:32,530
because the drug barons will shoot me when I get off the plane, you know, and occasionally that happens, right?

497
00:58:32,920 --> 00:58:37,749
And that occasionally is too often because you haven't got six years.

498
00:58:37,750 --> 00:58:39,129
And why does it take six years?

499
00:58:39,130 --> 00:58:45,880
Because it's an international court and it's got the Baltic states and it's got Russia, and it's got people being disappeared.

500
00:58:46,360 --> 00:58:48,009
And surely we can do better than that.

501
00:58:48,010 --> 00:58:59,139
Surely we can have a human rights Act that allows local judges and and local courts to, um, with, with local legal traditions, frankly, um, to,

502
00:58:59,140 --> 00:59:02,680
to adjudicate our rights and freedoms questions I had and a second point about Putin,

503
00:59:02,680 --> 00:59:08,560
etc. is what kind of a signal is it going to send to people like him?

504
00:59:08,860 --> 00:59:14,589
If the UK government says two things to the Strasbourg system now, you can say he won't get right.

505
00:59:14,590 --> 00:59:20,230
I'm sorry. I just think, yes, there were some terrible things going on in Russia and elsewhere in the world,

506
00:59:20,410 --> 00:59:25,959
but what kind of a signal would it say if a country like the United Kingdom doesn't?

507
00:59:25,960 --> 00:59:33,070
If we've had enough of all this universal human rights business, which is what just do our own thing for our own nationals and and what's more,

508
00:59:33,070 --> 00:59:38,650
every time you have a change of government will, um, we'll have a new bill of rights that suits the government of the day,

509
00:59:39,190 --> 00:59:42,340
you know, permanent constitutional revolution, you might call it. Right.

510
00:59:43,660 --> 00:59:49,690
It doesn't work because a bill of rights, it has to require a sort of semi sacred status.

511
00:59:49,690 --> 00:59:54,100
Over time, it has to become untouchable. The governments of different persuasion.

512
00:59:54,300 --> 00:59:57,580
If it doesn't, you know, it just doesn't. It just doesn't work. And I think.

513
00:59:57,620 --> 01:00:00,980
Would be a terrible thing, and I don't see how we could hold our head up.

514
01:00:01,310 --> 01:00:08,810
In the international community, I don't see how we can lecture people like Putin, which seems to be to be ripping up Churchill's legacy.

515
01:00:08,840 --> 01:00:15,630
Why is it that human rights abuses, um, are often these days considered, uh,

516
01:00:15,650 --> 01:00:23,230
justifications for military intervention at home and abroad, but never human rights protection or indeed, refugee protection?

517
01:00:23,240 --> 01:00:32,720
Uh, discuss. Uh uh uh, and then and then finally, the question about and this is a very loaded question from someone who's definitely a lawyer,

518
01:00:32,930 --> 01:00:37,370
because he cited the earlier case and um, said, basically, um,

519
01:00:37,610 --> 01:00:44,329
what's being put to me that, um, for the non-lawyers in the audience is that I said that, you know,

520
01:00:44,330 --> 01:00:49,160
that this is a wonderful dialogue model of human rights protections and dialogue between,

521
01:00:49,460 --> 01:00:57,140
you know, on the one hand, um, and the policy in the judiciary, and we preserve parliaments over ten human rights that, um, on the other hand,

522
01:00:57,440 --> 01:01:03,200
it's a dialogue model between domestic judges and international and domestic

523
01:01:03,200 --> 01:01:07,759
judges only have to take account of the judgements of the Strasbourg court,

524
01:01:07,760 --> 01:01:10,339
and they can disagree with the way their thinking is going.

525
01:01:10,340 --> 01:01:17,149
And then they can, you know, and then the Strasbourg court will have to listen to the the more polished jurisprudence of our judges many,

526
01:01:17,150 --> 01:01:19,550
many times in mine and so on. And so it goes on.

527
01:01:20,060 --> 01:01:29,930
Um, how saw the learned gentlemen did point out to me that the wonderful thing is, he was right about almost absolutely everything he did.

528
01:01:29,930 --> 01:01:36,590
Perhaps sometimes in that, in that judgement, you know, suggests, almost suggest that, you know, what's the point.

529
01:01:36,980 --> 01:01:47,690
And the disagreeing with Strasbourg and he did try to, to really push um, really pushed his brother, mostly brother judges, brother and sister judges.

530
01:01:47,690 --> 01:01:56,929
In the UK there are 1 or 2 suspects, not enough to um to, to really, um, perhaps to obey Strasbourg rather than take account of it.

531
01:01:56,930 --> 01:02:05,209
Um, and so I agree with him of that so much I think he right to that particular, that particular pudding and, and that's a mistake.

532
01:02:05,210 --> 01:02:10,550
We have to go back to the text and get back to the intention and get back to the drafting of the Human Rights Act.

533
01:02:10,550 --> 01:02:19,730
And the injunction is to take account of Strasbourg jurisprudence, not be bound by and and as I say, we should be taking account of um,

534
01:02:20,120 --> 01:02:25,969
of human rights judgements from, you know, from from other constitutional courts in Canada,

535
01:02:25,970 --> 01:02:29,870
in South Africa, in India, and all over them, all over the world.

536
01:02:29,870 --> 01:02:34,579
Um, and this and this dialogue, um, this is a not even a dialogue.

537
01:02:34,580 --> 01:02:39,920
It's a it's a genuine conversation that's about universal human rights protection.

538
01:02:42,120 --> 01:02:45,320
It's totally up. Couple of questions. I need testimonies from.

539
01:02:48,640 --> 01:02:53,290
We don't discriminate against God. That's been true.

540
01:02:54,310 --> 01:02:58,900
Best. Thank you. I have, um, I have a question.

541
01:02:58,900 --> 01:03:03,310
Um, how much do human rights have to adapt to, um,

542
01:03:04,000 --> 01:03:12,490
developments in bioethics and particularly thinking in cases of Indonesia, in abortion debates in Europe?

543
01:03:12,910 --> 01:03:21,640
Um, can you say something about this? How much in when you come to work?

544
01:03:21,730 --> 01:03:25,720
I come to Oxford to the easy questions, then go back to London.

545
01:03:26,080 --> 01:03:31,180
Um, what what are human rights have to have to say about bioethics?

546
01:03:31,210 --> 01:03:41,440
Well, um. I could say, but I'm not going to because I'm saying that this is about values and not just about rules.

547
01:03:41,530 --> 01:03:50,139
There hasn't actually been a great deal of litigation in this area, but that doesn't mean that the that the the values,

548
01:03:50,140 --> 01:04:01,750
they say the values as an, as a, as a system of ethics shouldn't be, um, shouldn't be filtering into the medical and research community.

549
01:04:02,410 --> 01:04:07,460
Um, I, I sometimes worry, um, this is a this is a genuine fear.

550
01:04:07,550 --> 01:04:17,709
Um, the diseases that the human rights debates and human rights thinking and human rights ethics is so dominated by,

551
01:04:17,710 --> 01:04:21,460
um, by lawyers and to some extent,

552
01:04:21,460 --> 01:04:31,630
politicians that that we don't even under understand enough about the internet or about genetics or about some of these other,

553
01:04:32,050 --> 01:04:36,410
these other spaces to to actually decide what is proportionate.

554
01:04:36,430 --> 01:04:41,150
You know, so we've got these, we've got these, we've got this discipline about what is necessary and proportionate and,

555
01:04:41,340 --> 01:04:45,760
and what is arbitrary and what is, you know, and, and principles of non-discrimination.

556
01:04:45,760 --> 01:04:48,550
So we've got the kind of legal framework and the tools.

557
01:04:48,880 --> 01:04:56,680
But to actually, to actually make the adjudication, to actually make the negotiation in a particular in a particular context,

558
01:04:56,680 --> 01:05:04,569
we need to know more about the science and, um, that those silos need to, need to need to be broken.

559
01:05:04,570 --> 01:05:10,740
Because sometimes I think that the scientists and the technologists don't know enough about the human rights thinking.

560
01:05:10,780 --> 01:05:16,210
We don't know enough, um, about the science. And I'll openly abdicate at that point.

561
01:05:16,840 --> 01:05:20,170
Um, I think done that. Nice, neat little sidestep. Yes.

562
01:05:21,520 --> 01:05:31,250
It was. Did you have, uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh, others I.

563
01:05:36,470 --> 01:05:42,020
Well, I don't think so. Yeah. So the question was, do I think that, uh.

564
01:05:42,120 --> 01:05:45,500
Is it the due to the needs or demands? Is that the way you put it?

565
01:05:45,770 --> 01:05:51,040
Of, um, LGBT people, um, can be met by the CHL.

566
01:05:51,050 --> 01:05:56,900
I don't think I know, because this has been happening for for years.

567
01:05:56,900 --> 01:06:05,420
And, um, we've got to the place that we've gone and then maybe, you know, said that this was further progress to be met, but be under no illusion.

568
01:06:05,630 --> 01:06:09,160
The fact that we, um, that we have, you know,

569
01:06:09,170 --> 01:06:16,430
a conservative prime minister who's upset his own right flank by by allowing gay marriage just just this year,

570
01:06:16,430 --> 01:06:22,069
that would never have happened, um, without, you know, litigation,

571
01:06:22,070 --> 01:06:26,600
including by my organisation over many years in the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

572
01:06:27,100 --> 01:06:32,780
The the age of consent was not equalised until until 2000.

573
01:06:32,780 --> 01:06:40,530
Right. And that was after years of um of actual and threatened litigation in the Strasbourg cultures.

574
01:06:40,610 --> 01:06:45,649
You in Sutherland's case that that was was pending and then and then on hold for so many

575
01:06:45,650 --> 01:06:51,740
years while the UK government and Parliament and others are about about implementing it.

576
01:06:51,740 --> 01:06:58,969
And, you know, the House of Lords has done many lovely and benign things in recent years compared to the House of Commons on human rights issues.

577
01:06:58,970 --> 01:07:02,920
But back in the day, there were some serious dinosaurs in that Brexit.

578
01:07:04,420 --> 01:07:06,309
As a young Home Office lawyer, I you know,

579
01:07:06,310 --> 01:07:13,750
I worked on the legislation that that equalised the age of consent and some of those debates that I used to sit in late at night.

580
01:07:14,170 --> 01:07:22,900
They there was more medical than legal language and it wasn't desperately attractive, you know, but the threat, you know, the threat of, of, of, um,

581
01:07:23,740 --> 01:07:27,639
being impinged in Strasbourg and then sometimes actually being impugned in

582
01:07:27,640 --> 01:07:31,750
Strasbourg as a menace came back to the Dutch in case goal went to sufferers,

583
01:07:32,170 --> 01:07:35,350
um, and other cases to transgendered people.

584
01:07:35,590 --> 01:07:42,040
Really, really, um, sometimes nudged and sometimes compelled um, the, uh,

585
01:07:42,280 --> 01:07:47,590
successive UK governments to tell me I would never say that it was law alone that did that.

586
01:07:47,950 --> 01:07:52,440
I think all sorts of cultural things and all sorts of activism was equally important.

587
01:07:52,480 --> 01:07:56,410
But that's how you campaign and that's how we campaign at Liberty.

588
01:07:56,530 --> 01:07:59,800
Some litigation, some some persuasion.

589
01:08:00,130 --> 01:08:07,190
Some, um, some. Some culture. But in the end, the law is the iron fist in the velvet glove.

590
01:08:07,190 --> 01:08:12,620
And it was very important, I would say, in the struggle for LGBT rights in Europe and in Britain.

591
01:08:15,270 --> 01:08:18,620
Probably have just seen one more question.

592
01:08:18,620 --> 01:08:31,160
So if find. Um, I'm thinking of a number of judgements which have come on to the Supreme Court in the last few years,

593
01:08:31,520 --> 01:08:35,570
which is in the context of natural justice and fair trials,

594
01:08:36,260 --> 01:08:39,110
brought home the fact that if the government was repealed,

595
01:08:39,110 --> 01:08:46,040
the Human Rights Act and the Commonwealth would step up to ensure these values were not ignored.

596
01:08:46,340 --> 01:08:53,900
Um, um, there's been a number of great academic pieces about how wonderful it is that the common law is stepping up.

597
01:08:54,380 --> 01:09:04,580
Um, would you argue that in spite of that, um, assertion by the Supreme Court that human rights would continue much as they have done?

598
01:09:04,940 --> 01:09:09,890
That we'd still be missing something in the international to your rights if that were to happen?

599
01:09:11,960 --> 01:09:20,320
This is this is fighting talk. And I'm also citing talk, you know, but this is this would be a tragedy.

600
01:09:20,350 --> 01:09:26,360
I mean, the before we had the human rights side, the, um, you know,

601
01:09:26,360 --> 01:09:32,960
I was already a lawyer and the courts were already trying to to step up at the end of the day, they need they need tools.

602
01:09:33,650 --> 01:09:33,920
Right.

603
01:09:34,100 --> 01:09:42,139
So what they were doing before the passage of the Human Rights Act was saying, well, you know, the common law is capable of absorbing, you know,

604
01:09:42,140 --> 01:09:49,250
the very organic way it can absorb sort of international human rights thinking and treaty law and,

605
01:09:49,640 --> 01:09:55,250
and culture and practice and legal thinking around the world can somehow seek in a really organic way.

606
01:09:56,780 --> 01:10:03,799
Well, that's all very well. But when an Act of Parliament is absolutely clear on its face,

607
01:10:03,800 --> 01:10:11,930
we have I have seen in my career Acts of Parliament, drafted by lovely, by lovely, um, new layers of government.

608
01:10:12,140 --> 01:10:18,500
That said, there shall be no judicial review against the Home Secretary's division, uh, decision.

609
01:10:18,710 --> 01:10:24,590
There shall be no habeas corpus for this person. I you tell me how you come and rule that, right?

610
01:10:25,310 --> 01:10:28,220
You sound like a lawyer to me. So you know that that is impossible.

611
01:10:28,310 --> 01:10:36,980
So we could not have even got into the court when, for example, the Belmarsh case, under the common law, because Parliament was so clear that,

612
01:10:37,010 --> 01:10:43,790
okay, we only got a declaration of incompatibility, but we got into the courtroom and that was a shaming position.

613
01:10:44,480 --> 01:10:51,020
And the Blair government didn't feel politically or internationally that it could then not implement that decision.

614
01:10:51,320 --> 01:10:56,940
The common law will not sustain in the face of a clear parliamentary intention,

615
01:10:56,940 --> 01:11:02,210
and that means an executive intention to oust human rights to judicial review.

616
01:11:03,020 --> 01:11:10,370
So I love that, you know, some judges has, you know, going in for a bit of fighting talk, but, um, but,

617
01:11:10,400 --> 01:11:14,840
you know, that's that's the one that can, you know, it's fighting talk in the courtroom is all too late.

618
01:11:15,650 --> 01:11:19,400
But at liberty, my lawyers say to my to my parliamentary colleagues,

619
01:11:19,400 --> 01:11:25,850
the policy committee will pick up the pieces when you screwed up because the bad offending legislation go through and they have little,

620
01:11:26,150 --> 01:11:31,370
you know, that you really want to stop. You want to say is a human rights act because there was a lot to lose.

621
01:11:31,370 --> 01:11:37,849
And I've just tried to explain to you how, how limited, um, the opportunities for judicial activism would be.

622
01:11:37,850 --> 01:11:44,569
And judicial activism can be dangerous, too. And I've heard John Lewis and other people say, I mean, at the end of the day,

623
01:11:44,570 --> 01:11:50,149
you know, parliamentary sovereignty is just a move of recognition that's fighting talk.

624
01:11:50,150 --> 01:11:56,450
And as I said in my talk, at the end of the day, judges do not know those names, right?

625
01:11:56,870 --> 01:12:01,909
Who's who's got the armies to command? Who's got them? You know who's interfering with police independence?

626
01:12:01,910 --> 01:12:05,450
Who has the the hard edged power? It's the it's the executive.

627
01:12:05,450 --> 01:12:12,910
It's it's not the judiciary. And they really, really need, um, the, the vital tools in the picture and the right side.

628
01:12:15,130 --> 01:12:20,540
Something. I think it does. Proud. Um, you know, I mean, you give this an enormously thought provoking lecture.

629
01:12:21,050 --> 01:12:25,560
Um, but I think it really hit the nail squarely on the head of the president's.

630
01:12:26,320 --> 01:12:30,490
Holy [INAUDIBLE]. Humans love you so. Thank you so much.