Do we need a
UK Bill of Rights?
Deciding what to do:
The main ideas from a report by the
Commission on a Bill of Rights
Easy read version of the Overview section of the report:
UK Bill of Rights?
The Choice Before Us
What is in this paper
?
Page
About this paper
1
Human rights in the UK
and Europe
5
What we found out
9
What could be in a Bill of Rights
for the UK
13
What we think about a
Bill of Rights for the UK
15
Thank you
21
About this paper
This paper is a short version of the main
ideas from a report by the Commission on
a Bill of Rights.
We are a group of people whose job is to
think about whether we need a Bill of
Rights for the UK.
We have to tell the government what we
think about this.
We are not part of the government.
A Bill of Rights would say what rights
people have and how people should be
treated.
Rights are things that should happen for
everyone.
1
2012
Last year we talked to lots of different
people:
l
individual people and organisations
l
lawyers and people who work in public
organisations and universities
l
people, governments and
organisations in Northern Ireland,
Scotland and Wales.
We asked them:
?
?
l
do you think we need a Bill of Rights
for the UK?
l
what should be in a Bill of Rights?
2
l
should a Bill of Rights be the same in
England, Northern Ireland, Scotland
and Wales?
l
is there anything else you want to say
about our work?
You can read what people said on our
website:
www.justice.gov.uk/about/cbr
We have also learnt a lot by talking to
each other and thinking about these
things.
This is an important subject for everyone
and many people have very strong ideas
about it, including newspapers, radio and
television programmes.
3
People often feel very strongly when they
talk about human rights.
This can make it difficult to think about
views other people have and work out
what you really think.
It is also difficult for the government to
decide about a Bill of Rights for the UK so
they asked us to help them.
This paper is about our report to the
government that tells them what we
found out.
4
Human rights in the UK and
Europe
Human rights in the UK
The UK is run using laws. Laws are rules
that say what you can and cannot do.
Courts decide whether people or the
government are breaking these laws.
Only Parliament can make new laws or
decide to change our laws.
The idea of human rights in the UK goes
back 100s of years. The way people wrote
about things then was very different, but
the idea has always been the same.
Human rights laws stop people who run
the country having too much power and
protect the rights of people who live here.
5
Human rights in Europe
After bad things happened in the Second
World War, governments thought about
laws for human rights to keep people safe.
European countries agreed a list of human
rights and decided how to protect these
rights.
They wrote all this down in a document
called the European Convention on
Human Rights.
Each European country must make sure its
people get these rights.
This means the UK has to make sure
people who live here get these rights. The
UK has a law that says what the rights are
and how they are protected here in the
UK.
The law is called the Human Rights Act
1998.
6
UK courts use the Human Rights Act to
decide whether public authorities are
sticking to the European Convention on
Human Rights.
Public authorities are people like the
government, local councils or the health
service.
The Human Rights Act means you can
take these public authorities to court if
they do something that is against your
human rights.
If the courts think a law in the UK says
different things to the European
Convention on Human Rights, Parliament
can decide whether to change it.
If you do not agree with what the UK
courts say, you can ask a special court in
Europe to decide. This court is called the
European Court of Human Rights.
7
2006
For a while people did not say much about
a Bill of Rights for the UK but in 2006
Parliament started to talk about it again.
The government thought the Human
Rights Act was a good start but a Bill of
Rights might include more things that are
important to people in the UK.
2011
Our group was set up in 2011 to help the
government think about this.
We were also set up to help the
government think about how to make the
European Court of Human Rights better.
8
What we found out
What people said about a Bill of
Rights for the UK
About half the people we asked think we
do not need a UK Bill of Rights because the
Human Rights Act:
l
makes sure the government gives
people their rights
l
protects UK laws but makes sure our
government sticks to the European
Convention on Human Rights
l
works well for the courts and for
Parliament.
About 1 out of every 4 people do not like
the Human Rights Act, but think a UK Bill
of Rights might be even worse.
9
Some people think the European Court of
Human Rights has too much power.
They want a Bill of Rights to give our
Parliament more power to decide about
rights in the UK.
Some say a Bill of Rights could have rights
that feel more like our rights, instead of
rights in a paper in Europe.
Other people said a Bill of Rights could
include new rights that are important to
people in the UK.
10
It could make sure we do not lose the
rights we have, but be a chance to think
about new rights.
A Bill of Rights could talk about
responsibilities as well as rights.
Responsibilities are things everyone is
expected to do.
It could also help people understand some
parts of the Human Rights Act.
What people in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland said
Most people in Northern Ireland, Scotland
and Wales that spoke to us do not want a
UK Bill of Rights.
They think their own governments should
decide how to protect rights in their
countries.
11
NI Bil
of Rig l
hts
Scotland is thinking about whether it
should be independent from the UK.
Northern Ireland is already working on its
own Bill of Rights.
What happens in other countries
We looked at other countries in Europe
and the rest of the world.
Bill
of Rig
hts
Bill
of Rig
hts
Most other countries have a Bill of Rights.
Some rights are the same in lots of
countries but others are very different.
Other European countries use their own
Bill of Rights to make sure people are
treated fairly.
In the UK we use the Human Rights Act to
make sure that people get the rights that
are in the European Convention.
12
What could be in a Bill of
Rights for the UK
Extra rights
Many people said there should be new
rights in a UK Bill of Rights that are not in
the European Convention.
These could include things that are
important to people who live here.
New rights might include:
l
rights for children and young people
l
rights to study and learn, work, have a
home and get help from a doctor
l
a better right to be treated equally and
fairly.
13
A few people thought it would be difficult
to include more rights.
Responsibilities
Some people said we must think about
responsibilities as well as rights.
They thought people should lose some
rights if they behave badly or break the
law.
But most people thought human rights are
for everyone.
They said we should use laws to punish
people if they do something wrong, not
take away their human rights.
14
What we think about a Bill of
Rights for the UK
What we decided
We think that it might be a good idea to
keep thinking about a Bill of Rights for the
UK.
But only when the time is right.
There are a lot of things to think about at
the same time:
l
many people in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland do not want a UK Bill
of Rights
l
there are lots of changes with
governments in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland at the moment.
2013
This means it is the wrong time to work on
a UK Bill of Rights now.
15
We think the government should wait until
they know whether the people in Scotland
want to be independent or not.
NI Bil
of Rig l
hts
We also do not want to stop people in
Northern Ireland working on their own Bill
of Rights.
All of us think people in the UK should
learn more about human rights and the
human rights laws.
We agreed that the European Court of
Human Rights should work better.
We could not agree if the UK should have
a Bill of Rights.
16
Bill
of Rig
hts
Most people in our group think it is a good
idea to have a UK Bill of Rights because:
l
other European countries have their
own Bills of Rights
l
people in the UK do not think the
European Convention, the European
Court and the Human Rights Act are
working well
l
they think a UK Bill of Rights will
protect people’s rights better
l
they think a UK Bill of Rights will help
people understand human rights
better.
2 people in our group do not want a Bill of
Rights for the UK because:
l
they think the Human Rights Act works
well
17
l
there are a lot of changes happening in
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
that will affect all of the UK and UK
laws
l
they think this is the wrong time to try
for a Bill of Rights
l
many people we spoke to said they do
not want a UK Bill of Rights
l
they think the UK should stick with the
European Convention on Human
Rights.
We all agree that the UK Government and
UK Parliament should do more work and
talk to more people before they decide
about a UK Bill of Rights.
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Extra rights
It is not our job to decide which extra
rights should be in a UK Bill of Rights. But
the European Convention on Human
Rights is very old and things have changed
a lot.
We think we could have:
l
better rights about treating everyone
equally and fairly
l
some rights for everyone but then let
governments in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland include extra rights
for people in their country
l
more rights about the law and justice.
Responsibilities
We all agree that people need to
understand about responsibilities. But we
think human rights are for everyone, not
just people who behave well.
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The European Court of Human Rights
The European Court is not working well. It
is very busy and too many people are
asking it to decide about their rights.
We told the government our ideas for
changing the European Court so it:
l
only deals with serious cases
l
may not always be the one to decide if
people should get money when
governments or organisations take
away their rights
l
is better at choosing judges for the
court.
Some of these ideas are in a paper that
European governments signed last year.
Some things are getting better but other
things still need to change.
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Thank you
We would like to thank everyone who has
helped us get information to decide about
a Bill of Rights for the UK.
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