Human Rights Act 1998

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A) Explain the impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 upon the law of England and Wales.The ECHR was created in response to WW2. And it’s a list of Human Rights which we should have, the council of Europe wrote the ECHR and the UK was a driving force behind it. The UK signed it but did not make it law until 1998 by passing the HRA. Citizens’ rights in the Uk have been seen as residual. What you’re not allowed to do is set by law and what you can do is not set out by law. After the law has said what you can’t do you are allowed to do the leftovers (residual). An example of this is you are not allowed to do over 30mph, it doesn’t tell you what speed limit you can go under 30mph. so basically you can’t claim the right e.g to 25mph its easier to change the limit as you have no right over it. In the case Malone v Metropolitan police commissioner 1979, Malone’s telephone was tapped by the police. Malone claimed this removed his right to privacy. There wasn’t a law forbidding this. So Marlone’s action failed. Residual freedoms are easy to remove and difficult to enforce in court. Even though the UK signed the ECHR it didn’t incorporate the Human Rights into the legal system. Incorporation means that the ECHR was not made part of our law. But as the ECHR was not law, parliament was not legally obliged to alter its approach. The right of individual petition allowed the UK citizens to go to Strasbourg and claim their human rights in the court of human rights. This could only be done where they had tried all the remedies in the Uk i.e appeal to the House of Lords. Which was probably not a popular option given to the time and expensive. But people did have use of it. But the court of human rights was able to declare, in a public courtroom that the UK had illegally removed an individual’s human rights. This could embarrass the UK and parliament may choose to alter the
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