ECHR: Britain loses 3 in 4 cases at human rights court

Britain has lost three out of four cases taken to the European Court of Human Rights, new figures have shown.

A study commissioned by a group of backbench Conservative MPs concluded that European judges had ruled more than 270 cases “breached a Convention right”.

While human rights are to be “cherished”, today’s report concluded that “few courts have exploited” the ambiguity that such laws have created, than the Strasbourg-based court.

Last night the group of MPs demanded the government take action over the issue as calls intensified for the need to “end rule by judges and reinstate Parliamentary democracy”.

The report, written by Robert Broadhurst, a legal researcher commissioned by the MPS, found that since Britain subscribed to the ECHR’s jurisdiction in 1966 there have been more than 350 rulings on whether the UK has violated convention rights.

The number of judgments made against the UK stands at 271, against only 86 that were successful, as the volume of cases increased “dramatically over this period”.

In a further 50 cases Britain reached a settlement with the claimant, which would usually lead to a pay out in return for an agreement to drop the case.

The judgments have been blamed for allowing dozens of foreign criminals and terrorists to claim they have a "human right" to remain in this country and also to give prisoners the right to vote.

The report, titled Human rights: Making them work for the people of the UK, concluded that while “human rights are to be cherished”, most were not “absolute”.

It admitted that exactly what the laws meant “in practice” often involved difficult choices but that precise guidance was impossible due to its scope.

“Freedom of speech, the prohibition of torture and the right to a fair trial are just some of the fundamental entitlements dear to the people of this country, and which the United Kingdom has long propounded,” says the report’s introduction.

“The application of human rights, then, can confer on the judiciary sweeping discretion over what the law requires, given the great ambiguity of the meaning of these rights in particular cases

“Few courts have exploited this discretion more than the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).”

The European court has 47 judges, representing every member state of the Council of Europe including Liechtenstein, Monaco and Andorra.

In their foreword to the report the MPs, headed by Chris Heaton-Harris, the Member for Daventry, say they are “proud” of Britain’s record of human rights but that “something has gone badly wrong”.

”When we are ordered by the European Court of Human Rights, against our firmly held beliefs and those of our constituents, to scrap a provision of an Act of Parliament... it is time to reflect on how human rights are being applied,” they wrote.

“The main problem... is that we all have to accept judges’ interpretations of human rights, even when those interpretations strike us as a gross distortion of such rights.”

"A radical change was needed so the court could “no longer impose perverse notions of rights on the people of this country”.

Last month, Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, disclosed that Britain was drawing up proposals for a “filtering system” at the court to limit the type of cases it hears.

He said officials were working on a joint proposal with the Swiss that would “pave the way” on which claims would be allowed to go to Strasbourg.

It was part of his drive to reform the international court to ensure that it deals only with major breaches of human rights and not “trivial” personal claims.

Britain hopes to use its current chairmanship of the Council of Europe to push through reform of the Strasbourg court. While Mr Clarke had previously "never seen the need" for a British Bill of Rights, he now had an "open mind".

In 2006, he criticised David Cameron's plan to tear up the Human Rights Act and replace it with a Bill of Rights as "xenophobic". A Ministry of Justice spokesman was unavailable for comment on Wednesday night.


(2012-01-12/telegraph.co.uk)