Human rights committee would be missed

Andrew Blick (London, Democratic Audit): The UK Parliament has a dubious record as a protector of human rights. The Commons vote on 42 days is only a recent example. For instance there is a long history of governments of various parties implementing large-scale internment programmes on spurious security grounds while meeting little in the way of significant resistance from the legislature. The malign impact of this poor performance is magnified because under UK constitutional arrangements, Parliament is theoretically supreme, with the judiciary lacking the power always fully to uphold freedoms.

For these reasons we should congratulate the efforts of a parliamentary body which, since its instigation in 2001, has in effect acted as a lobby group within Parliament for the human rights cause, namely the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR).

There is discussion by Claire O'Brien and Guy Aitchison below on the content of the recent JCHR report on a bill of rights. While the proposals should be subject to scrutiny and they are not all as far reaching as I would like, it is important to get a perspective on them.

Parliamentary committees tend to proceed by consensus. This practice can make their findings cautious but can also give them extra weight. When a cross-party group of peers and MPs are able publicly to unite around the principle of a bill of rights, we should be pleased. Indeed I am not sure that any parliamentary committee has ever made such a firm proposal for a bill of rights. The Joint Committee on the Draft Constitutional Renewal Bill could not agree over less dramatic ideas, such as the powers of Parliament with respect to war-making being enshrined in statute, or the separation of the role of Attorney General from party politics. I doubt that committees such as the Commons Justice Committee or the Lords Committee on the Constitution would ever be so radical as the JCHR has proved.

Whatever one's opinion of this particular report, we would miss the JCHR if it was gone. Hopefully - assuming the Human Rights Act which prompted its establishment is not itself abolished - its future is secure.