Right-based culture

• • Rights-based culture – a system where there is an assumption that human rights take precedent over all other conditions in law.
• Parliamentary sovereignty – the principle that parliament – on behalf of the people who vote them into power – has the final say over laws.
• • Judicial review – process by which a judge will decide how a law should be interpreted, even if it goes against the intentions of parliament when it passed the law
• The Human Rights Act and the Equality Act mean that certain rights are protected by law, and violation of these rights can be contested in a court of law
• The Abu Qatada case shows that the law does not make judgements based on the individual’s popularity, but purely on their status as a human being.
• The balance of the rights of all people are accounted for, as can be seen in the case of the ramblers on Madonna and Guy Richie’s land. The rights of the ramblers to roam are respected, as are Madonna and Guy Richie’s rights to privacy.
• Parliament – as representatives of the people – have been able to contest the removal of rights, as happened in 2005 with the compromise on how long a terrorism suspect could be detained
• Laws do not necessarily mean a culture has been created. While the ECHR has existed since the 1950s, there have been many cases where it has come into conflict with UK law
• The UK has ignored the ECHR, even though it has been incorporated into the Human Rights Act in some cases, such as the refusal to give prisoners the right to vote
• The government is easily able to suspend civil liberties if it wants to. Terrorism legislation has been mostly accepted as a necessary evil, as was the restrictions on gatherings and business openings during the Covid-19 lockdown.
• There is to some extent a ‘tyranny of the majority’ when it comes to who has rights respected. The Abu Qatada case was very unpopular with the public, and prison reform shows rights depend on public sympathy with those who want them.