Constitutional Reform 1997-2010 2

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Human Rights Act

The 1998 Human Rights Act (HRA) incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into UK law.

Human Rights Act

The 1998 Human Rights Act (HRA) incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into UK law.
- The freedoms contained in the ECHR include the freedoms to life, to a fair trial, of expression and from discrimination among many others.
- The ECHR requires states to hold free and fair elections, abolish the death penalty, preserve family life and give foreigners the same rights as all citizens in a state.

HRA: Supreme Court

The Human Rights Act (HRA) means that any public body cannot act in a way that would break with the convention and that the judiciary must make rulings that are compatible with it.
The Supreme Court can strike down secondary legislation that is incompatible with the HRA, but for primary legislation they can only issue a ‘Doctrine of Incompatibility’ urging parliament to change the statute, this is due to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty.

Human Rights Act did enough

The fundamental rights of all British Citizens are very clearly laid out in one easily accessible piece of legislation.
There was an 8-fold increase in the number of human rights cases and claims brought to the high court after the Human Rights Act was passed.

More reform is needed

Some Conservatives resent the link to the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg and want to replace the HRA with a British Bill of Rights that defines certain rights more narrowly.
Despite the HRA, it is possible for the government to restrict the human rights of individuals.
- In 2005 the government introduced control orders, allowing the authorities to restrict the movements of suspected terrorists.
- In order to do this, they simply had to declare an exemption from Article 5 of the HRA for those who fall under suspicion.

Constitutional Reform Act: Supreme Court

The 2005 Constitutional Reform Act created a separate Supreme Court as the highest court of appeal in the UK. Before this, the UK's senior judges sat in the House of Lords (known as the Law Lords).

Judicial reform

The 2005 Constitutional Reform Act has three major effects:
- The Act separated the government and the judiciary.
- The Act formed a Supreme Court which separated parliament from the judiciary.
- The Act reformed the appointment process for senior judicial appointments.

Lord Chancellor

The Act split the powers of the Lord Chancellor into 3 different roles as previously the holder of this position had been a member of the government, speaker of the House of Lords and head of the judiciary with the power to appoint judges.
Now the Lord Chancellor is simply a government role with the Lord Speaker presiding over the House of Lords and the Lord Chief Justice as head of the judiciary.
These reforms made the judiciary more independent.

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court was formed to replace the ‘Law Lords’ as the UK’s highest court of appeal.
This reform separated parliament from the judiciary.

Appointments

Prior to the reforms, senior judicial appointments were made by the prime minister and Lord Chancellor, who are political figures.
The Act established a Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) to appoint candidate’s based solely on their legal qualifications and ability.
The government makes the final decision on appointments but they must be approved by the JAC.

Reforms did enough

There is now a clear separation of the 3 branches of government which prevents abuse of power.
The judiciary is physically and constitutionally separate from the executive and legislature allowing for greater judicial independence, strengthening rule of law.

More reform is needed

The Supreme Court is much weaker than its counterparts in most other liberal democracies (with codified constitutions). It cannot strike down legislation as that would weaken (or perhaps destroy) parliamentary sovereignty.
The composition of the supreme court is not very diverse, however, neither is the group of well qualified, experienced judges from which they have to choose their ranks and is a problem in the judiciary as a whole.

Electoral Reform

Electoral reform has remained an important issue in UK politics for many years including around voting age and the electoral system.

Electoral system

New Labour introduced various forms of proportional representation for elections to the European Parliament, Scottish Parliament, Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies.
The additional member system (AMS) was introduced for the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament elections.
The single transferable vote (STV) was used for the Northern Irish Assembly elections.

Electoral system: AV

In 2011 a referendum was held on introducing the alternative vote (AV) system for general elections to parliament at Westminster.
The referendum rejected the proposed electoral reform and a first past the post system (FPTP) remains the system used.

Voting age

The voting age for UK citizens is 18 for UK general elections.
In the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the voting age was lowered to 16 for the first time.
There remains calls for the voting age to be lowered from 18 for all UK elections.