We need to talk about the ECHR...
The European Court of Human Rights is hugely important. From the right to an education to the right to vote, it covers and protects all aspects of our lives. The idea of losing it cause of some lies about “boat people” is terrifying and the effect on our lives untold.
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Can someone explain how exactly the ECHR protects us? Or anyone for that matter? The ECHR doesn't make laws in our country, that's just not how government works here. And I don't think it makes laws anywhere else either. So what exactly does it do and how does it do it?
Genuinely interested if anyone can explain.
https://research.senedd.wales/research-articles/a-quick-guide-to-human-rights-in-wales/
As I see it, it’s like workers rights…a lot of people are like “I don’t need rights cause I don’t know anyone that’s died at work”. People haven’t died at work because we have those rights.
Thanks 🙏.
So basically complaints are make to the ECHR by individuals from states that have signed up to it. They hear the case and issue a judgement on whether they think a violation has occured. But they don't stop bad laws behind passed. They will only hear a case after the fact. Cheers.
There's a very broad area of what after the fact means.
Unjustly locked up? The echr can set you free.
About to be deported, to a country where you will be executed? You can appeal all the way up to the echr and they can block you from being deported until it's sorted.
Property about to be unjustly seized without compensation? You can often stonewall and resist seizure while appealing all the way up to the echr.
So they can and do act as an immediate remedy for harms. But they don't deal in hypotheticals, and it's fine to have all of these dumb things passed into law providing you don't try and act on them.
Also many human rights violations don't make it all the way to the echr. Knowing the way the echr will rule makes other judges reinterpret the law so it's consistent with our human rights. In the UK, they're obliged to do this.
Edit: you can tell it's useful because of all the politicians complaining about our rights.
As has been said elsewhere on this post, if you sign up to the ECHR you’re agreeing to apply these laws in your country.
If you sign up to the ECHR you are saying that you will secure the rights defined under it within your jurisdiction; that's Article 1. So it doesn't make the laws, but it requires that they be made.
Thanks
The European Court of Human Rights enforces the European Convention on Human Rights, which is an internationally treaty that was ratified in the UK in 1951 (with enthusiastic support from Churchill). It lists a bunch of fundamental rights.
In 1998, the UK passed the Human Rights Act, which provides these protections under domestic law, with the European court acting as a backstop.
So, yes, this is domestic law.
Max Robbespear did a video of someone giving one good example of why the ECHR is important to you as an individual in a country. The TLDR was that those from the Hillsborough disaster were able to gain justice only by making an appeal through the ECHR process. They were being walked over by an oppressive government.