Tag Archives: human rights day

Liberals across Europe mark Human Rights Day

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 10th December 2016 - 9:00 pm

Imagine living in a country where the government could just shove you in prison whenever it felt like it. And once they had you in their clutches, subjected you to cruel and degrading torture.

There are plenty people who don’t value their vote enough to use it, but imagine if we didn’t have it at all.

What if we weren’t allowed to voice opinions that were out of step with our rulers? Or assemble to protest against their decisions.

Anyone who has been brought up in this country will most likely not have had any direct experience of the things I’ve mentioned above. …

Posted in Op-eds | 3 Comments

LibLink: Lord Anthony Lester: With human rights under threat, there is a pressing need to celebrate Human Rights Day

By NewsHound | Fri 11th December 2015 - 1:25 pm

For Human Rights Day, Anthony Lester wrote for the Huffington Post. He addressed criticisms of it made in the media:

Last week The Times ran an editorial calling on Parliament to “end the absurdities of the Human Rights Act”. It argued that the Human Rights Act is redundant because “the country of Locke and Blackstone already had an unmatched body of law to protect the truly vulnerable”. That is surprising given the many cases where our law failed to do just that. As a barrister, I have represented newspapers on many occasions using the Human Rights Act and the Convention to

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged huffington post and lord anthony lester | 3 Comments

For Human Rights Day: Jim Wallace on falling foul of the Human Rights Act

By The Voice | Thu 10th December 2015 - 10:44 pm

It’s Human Rights Day today. Earlier this week, Jim Wallace spoke to the Legal Services Agency Conference about protecting our rights. He remembered that he had found himself on the wrong end of a Human Rights Act judgement. His attitude was much better than Alex Salmond’s was when the SNP were found wanting 12 years later. At that point, he referred to people bringing actions under the Act as among “the vilest people on the planet.”

For my part, I spent decades as a Liberal and Liberal Democrat candidate and MP, supporting campaigns to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights into our domestic law. “Bringing Rights Home” was our call; and so I understandably welcomed the passing of the Human Rights Act 1998. What never occurred to me during all the years of campaigning was that I would be the first government minister in the UK to be on wrong end of a decision under that Act. Yet on 11th of November 1999 that’s exactly what happened.

On that day, the Court ruled, in Starr & Chalmers v Ruxton that Temporary Sheriffs were unable to provide an independent and impartial tribunal and, as a result, as Justice Minister, I was forced to suspend every temporary Sheriff overnight.

Let’s not pretend. At the time,I would much rather that the case had been won. Losing put significant pressure on resources and made, for a time, the operation of our sheriff courts more difficult.

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged jim wallace | 3 Comments