Rights In Context

Question 1

What are civil responsibilities and obligations

Answer 1

• legal obligations such as obeying the law, paying taxes and performing jury service. These are seen as complimentary to rights.
• moral responsibilities such as voting in elections and playing a part in protecting the environment.
• ideas of ‘active citizenship’ go further and include offering voluntary community service.

Question 2

How were rights prior to the HRA 1998

Answer 2

• there was no single document positively setting out citizens’ rights. Instead there were ‘negative rights’
• e.g. people has the right to freedom of expression as long as it complied with laws against defamation and blasphemy.
• some rights were protected by acts of parliament, while others derived from custom or common law.

Question 3

How are rights protected in the UK

Answer 3

• the UK doesn’t have a codified constitution, the rights of citizens aren’t protected by an entrenched bill of rights as they are in the US.

Instead they are protected by:
- parliamentary legislation such as the equality act and the human rights act.
- pressure groups
- the HoL, parties and other groups in parliament
- Common Law, such as the presumption of innocence.

Question 4

Magna Carter

Answer 4

1215

• oldest statement of rights in the UK.
• original purpose was to limit royal power

Question 5

The Bill of Rights

Answer 5

1689

• further restricted the power of the monarch and increased its power

Question 6

The European Convention on Human Rights

Answer 6

1950

• drawn up by the council of Europe
• ECHR was set up in Strasbourg to hear cases where people felt their rights had been infringed upon in their counties.

Question 7

Human Rights Act

Answer 7

1998

• enshrined the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law, meaning rights could be defended in UK courts rather than having it go to Strasbourg.

Question 8

Arguments for the HRA

Answer 8

• HRA places public authorities in the UK under an obligation to treat everyone with fairness, equality and dignity.
• the HRA educates citizens about their rights and makes them more high profile in the political system.
• Article 2 of the ECHR protected in the HRA (the right to life) which places a duty on the state to investigate deaths where agents of the state such as the police were involved, was used to obtain a new inquest into the Hillsborough disaster.

Question 9

Arguments against the HRA

Answer 9

• many critics argue it stops terror suspects from being deported and that the HRA therefore favours undeserving individuals rather than protecting the legitimate freedoms of UK citizens and protecting society as a whole.
• it has been criticised for giving unelected judges too much power
• the HRA may be used to check other laws, but it is not entrenches and could still be repealed by a simple act of parliament, whilst also not being binding on parliament.

Question 10

Freedom of Information Act

Answer 10

2000

Made it easier for opposition MPs, journalists and voters to ask for information about the government. Members of the public also gained the right to access any information held about them by public bodies.

Question 11

Equality Act 2010

Answer 11

• Brought together earlier pieces of legislation that had sought to outlaw discrimination and unfair treatment (including the 1970 Equal Pay Act and the 1976 Race Relations Act)
• identifies nine ‘protected’ characteristics
  Disability, age , gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

Question 12

Stonewall

Answer 12

• campaigns for LGBT rights
• originally formed as an outsider group in opposition to section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act introduced by thatcher’s government which prohibited the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities.
• when New Labour came into power in 1997, it became an insider pressure group and used its contacts and favour to play a key role in policy development.

Question 13

Care4Calais

Answer 13

Pressure group

Has been key in fighting legal challenges on behalf of migrants in the UK threatened with deportation to Rwanda

Question 14

Howard League for Penal Reform

Answer 14

• outsider causal pressure group
• advocates for the rights of prisoners, has struggled to persuade the government to implement its agenda

Question 15

‘Ultra vires’

Answer 15

Means beyond the law

Question 16

Arguments for judicial review

Answer 16

• vital means of defending citizens’ rights, enabling the legality of government actions to be scrutinised.
• pressure groups often fund and instigate legal challenges on behalf of individuals.

Question 17

Arguments against judicial review

Answer 17

• critics argue it places too much power in the hands of unelected and unaccountable judges, who are able to ‘make law’

Question 18

How parliament and the government defend rights

Answer 18

• by introducing legislation that protects/ furthers the rights of citizens.
• parliament can also prevent the government from encroaching human rights by voting down bills.
• on the other hands, Parliament and the government can be argued to often contravene human rights in the UK, especially recent governments which have strong stances on law and order, as well as anti-terrorism.

Question 19

The Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act

Answer 19

• gives greater powers to the police and criminal justice system to impose restrictions on ‘unacceptable protests’, among other things.
• gives the Home Secretary significant powers to decide the type of protest deemed unacceptable and acceptable by the state.
• seen as a response to direct action campaigns by pressure groups and social movements in the UK, including Extinction Rebellion and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Question 20

Collective vs Individual rights

Answer 20

Individual and collective rights can often be seen to conflict, especially in relation to public safety and security, where the protection of the population is often used to justify the encroachment of the rights of individuals.

Question 21

How Blair’s gov clashed with the HoL following terrorist attacks in the 2000’s

Answer 21

The high profile terrorist attacks of the 2000s led to government measures that limited civil liberties in the interests of protecting the wider community. Ministers argued they had the right to detain terror suspects without trial on the grounds that a national emergency existed.

• in December 2004, the law lords ruled that indefinite detention of foreign nations on suspicion of terrorist charges was discriminatory.
• the government then passed a law to introduce a system of control order that enabled suspects to be monitored closely.

Question 22

COVID - rights

Answer 22

Showed how Parliament can remove the rights of the population very quickly in response to emergencies, with freedom of movement and organisation being seriously restricted during lockdowns in order to prevent the spread of the virus.

There are fears that lockdowns set a precedent of the erosion of rights that could be repeated.

Question 23

Arguments that rights are well protected in the UK

Answer 23

• everyone is equal before the law and has a wide range of rights
• the Equality Act ensures that everyone is treated fairly and criminalises discrimination.
• the HRA can be seen as effective in protecting and campaigning for the extension of human rights in the UK.
• the HoL especially is important in upholding rights.
• the judiciary is important in limiting the government and protecting rights in the UK.
• there have been various extensions of rights in the UK in the past couple of decades, particularly for LGBT individuals.

Question 24

Arguments that rights aren’t well protected in the UK/ they’re being eroded

Answer 24

• COVID and counter-terrorism measures show how human rights can be eroded in favour of protecting the collective.
• recent conservative governments have introduced legislation that contravenes human rights (especially the police, crime, sentencing and courts act), whilst the planned British Bill of Rights can be seen as worrying.
• Judicial review can be argued to give too much power to unelected, unaccountable judges.
• Civil Liberties Pressure Groups are important, but ultimately don’t make the final decision on laws, with the government and parliament seen as less effective in protecting rights.
• the HRA has been criticised for being too weak.
• the judiciary can be seen as biased against certain sections of the population due to its narrow composition.
• those who can afford effective legal representation can be argued to have more human rights than others.