It was a watershed moment when prime minister David Cameron controversially vetoed a European Union economic treaty in December. For the first time since joining the European community in 1973, Britain would not be a signatory of an important pact between nations. Lauded by some of his Tory peers for showing “bulldog spirit” – though criticised by others for isolating the UK – Cameron has now embarked on a new crusade to pull powers back from an overseas institution. This time his target is the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
There has long been unease within the Conservative party about the ECHR’s role. Established in 1959 and based in Strasbourg, France, the court aims to protect the civil and political rights of around 800 million people in 47 countries. It considers cases brought by individuals, organisations and states bound by the European Convention on Human Rights, a treaty that the UK and other European countries spearheaded after the Second World War in an attempt to prevent the reoccurrence of atrocities committed by the Nazis.
While the court is separate from the EU – overseen instead by the distinct Council of Europe – it has been subject to similar criticism. In particular, it has been accused of attempting to exert more and more power over member nations by overturning domestic judgements in cases where it should not have the right to intervene. In Britain, such criticism has heightened in recent years following a string of divisive rulings against the government on, for instance, prisoners’ right to vote and the police’s national DNA database.
Last month, speaking before the council in Strasbourg, Cameron made clear his desire to curtail the court’s powers. Comparing it to a “small claims court,” he warned that by making controversial rulings and taking on “trivial” cases, it was having a “corrosive effect on people’s support for human rights” and proposed that most final decisions should be made nationally. Because the ECHR is dealing with a huge backlog of cases – 151,000 at the end of 2011 – he argued it should only take on cases involving the most flagrant abuses of human rights or else risk failing to prevent serious violations because they end up “stuck in the queue.”
But human rights campaigners disagreed with the prime minister’s comments, and have expressed serious reservations about any proposals to scale back the ECHR’s powers.
“Comparing the Strasbourg court to a small claims court damages our public commitment to the international rule of law,” says Angela Patrick, human rights policy director for campaign group Justice. “Our concern is that what’s really coming out of the messages from central government is that they’re looking to set up a twin-track procedure, where they want to encourage the court to look at Russia and Turkey, and back off of states like the UK.
“We don’t really see how that is going to work in practice. These standards that are in the European Convention on Human Rights are meant to be universal. They were set up after the Second World War to reflect the real core of rights that you or I would expect to enjoy whether we’re in the UK, or Belgrade, or Italy. That universality is something we can’t see would continue to have credibility across Europe if what we’re really talking about is an Us and Them approach to rights.”
According to Justice, the high number of claims being made to the court shows that not enough is being done within member nations to address human rights issues – the court itself in a sense becoming a victim of its own success. The organisation points out that of all the 151,000 cases pending in the court at the end of 2011, over half were from four states with particularly bad human rights records – Russia, Turkey, Italy and Romania – with around 2.4 per cent (3,650) from the UK.
Some of the criticisms levelled at the ECHR, specifically around the scale of the case backlog, have already been taken on board. New reforms, agreed during conferences in 2010 and 2011 that led to what became known as the Interlaken and Izmir declarations, are attempting to reduce the number of applicants via a series of measures, such as through the proposed introduction of application fees. Key elements of the changes, however, face opposition from a broad range of organisations including Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists who say they could inhibit equal access to the court.
On the opposite side of the fence is right-leaning London think tank the Policy Exchange, which believes that the Interlaken and Izmir declarations do not go far enough. In February 2011 Policy Exchange published Bringing Rights Back Home, a report on European human rights law that influenced the position of those in government calling for a reduction in the ECHR’s ability to overrule British court rulings. The report called in to question the competency of some of the judges serving in the ECHR, and suggested that the UK should withdraw from its jurisdiction completely if attempts to negotiate substantial reforms fail.
“We are critical of the way in which the European court has grown in influence and has shown a lack of deference to our own supreme court on controversial human rights cases,” says Blair Gibbs, head of crime and justice at Policy Exchange. “We are very sceptical about the notion that the Strasbourg court alone decides what constitutes a breach of human rights and indeed what issues are human rights.
“We think it’s really important that we have a mature debate about how public opinion and parliamentary democracy can be compatible with judgements from an international court that go against laws debated and decided upon in individual countries.”
As the government steps back from Europe over the economic crisis, it now appears ever more likely that it will do the same on other issues – including human rights. Last year, the coalition initiated a commission that is looking into introducing a UK Bill of Rights, which it says will protect and extend liberties in Britain under the principles of the European Convention. But strong fears remain about the implications of what some see as a gradual move to pull out of the Strasbourg court altogether.
"Human rights, the rule of law and justice seem to be slipping down the political agenda in the current economic climate,” said Nicolas Bratza, president of the ECHR, in January. “It is in times like these that we must remember that human rights are not a luxury and that the burden of their protection must be a shared one. We must continue to ensure that the court remains strong, independent and courageous in its defence of the European Convention on Human Rights."
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