{"id":140136,"date":"2014-10-03T19:51:13","date_gmt":"2014-10-03T19:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=140136"},"modified":"2014-10-03T22:48:46","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T22:48:46","slug":"scrapping-human-rights-law-act-displaced-fury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/scrapping-human-rights-law-act-displaced-fury\/","title":{"rendered":"Scrapping human rights law is an act of displaced fury"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tory plan to break with the European court is all about blunting Ukip\u2019s bayonets \u2014 channelling rage that should be aimed elsewhere<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Jonathan Freedland<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the spelling mistake that gives the game away. Like a twist in a fine legal thriller, a single misplaced letter in the Conservatives\u2019 newest policy document<\/a>, announcing a plan to scrap the Human Rights Act<\/a>, reveals the true nature of the exercise. It confirms that, for all the legal veneer, this is strictly politics \u2014 not law. More than that, it is the latest example of a kind of displaced fury fast becoming the defining motif of politics \u2014 in Britain and beyond.<\/p>\n

So what was this telling error of spelling? The Tory paper \u2014 titled, in traditional Orwellian fashion, Protecting Human Rights in the UK (just as a blueprint for selling off the NHS would doubtless be called Keeping the Health Service Safe) \u2014 refers to legal \u201cjudgements\u201d. The sharp-eyedbarrister and blogger Carl Gardner spotted the problem<\/a> right away. \u201cLawyers tend to use the spelling \u2018judgment\u2019 for what\u2019s given in court,\u201d he wrote, \u201cand \u2018judgement\u2019 for the personal quality many non-judges and not all judges have. The spelling used suggests no lawyer has been involved in drafting the document.\u201d<\/p>\n

That makes sense. Why hire a lawyer for what is obviously a political hit job? That much is borne out by the text, consisting of a series of promises that either address problems that don\u2019t exist or propose changes that will change nothing.<\/p>\n

So Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, promises that the replacement of \u201cLabour\u2019s Human Rights Act\u201d by the Tories\u2019 \u201cBritish Bill of Rights and Responsibilities \u2026 will ensure that Parliament is the ultimate source of legal authority\u201d. That sounds worthwhile, ensuring our laws are made by those we elect rather than faceless judges in distant Strasbourg. Except there\u2019s no need. Parliament is already the ultimate source of legal authority, and has been for three centuries.<\/p>\n

If it were not, mere MPs would have no power to scrap the Human Rights Act, even if they wanted to. Those meddling foreign judges would stop them. But they can\u2019t. It means the Grayling plan is that rarest of objects: a document whose very existence disproves its argument.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tory plan to break with the European court is all about blunting Ukip\u2019s bayonets \u2014 channelling rage that should be aimed elsewhere Jonathan Freedland It\u2019s the spelling mistake that gives the game away. Like a twist in a fine legal thriller, a single misplaced letter in the Conservatives\u2019 newest policy document, announcing a plan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":140137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,21,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-140136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-human-rights","9":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}