Cautious welcome for Human Rights Act
The new Human Rights Act came into force in Britain and the Six
Counties on 2 October amidst much fanfare from the Labour
government.
The Act, which incorporates the European Convention of Human
Rights into British law, essentially means that people who feel
that their human rights have been violated no longer have to
apply to the human rights court in Strasbourg. Instead of having
to wait an average of around seven years before their cases come
to fruition, they can call the state to account within the
British legal system.
However, a note of caution has been sounded by some human and
civil rights campaigns who, whilst broadly welcoming the
legislation, warn against the belief that it will utterly
transform the landscape of human rights in Britain and the Six
Counties.
Paul May, for example, who campaigned on behalf of the Birmingham
Six and Roisin McAliskey, told An Phoblacht that although
``certainly it's better to have this legislation than not, there
has been a lot of government propaganda around it's importance.
It doesn't add significantly to our existing rights, particularly
in criminal [as opposed to civil] cases, so people shouldn't
think we have travelled the path into Eden''. He pointed out that
in cases such as the murder of Robert Hamill and the
extra-judicial killing of Diarmuid O'Neill, it could actually
still be preferable for the families to take their respective
cases to Strasbourg. He says that British judges could still not
be wholly relied upon - as was the case in the arrest and
detention of Roisin McAliskey - to be able to set aside political
considerations and apply the law with complete impartiality.
It is also unclear as to whether the legislation can be applied
retrospectively and thus whether it will have any effect on the
struggle by the families of Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson to
obtain, firstly, the truth about who was responsible for
sanctioning and carrying out the murders and, secondly, justice
for their loved ones.
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