A Bill of Rights for the UK?

MPs and peers have published a report this week calling for a UK Bill of Rights. This serves as a useful basis for considering the effectiveness of Parliament, as well as the case for and against a Bill of Rights

According to the BBC:

‘The government should adopt a Bill of Rights for the UK, a cross-party committee of MPs and peers has urged.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights said the bill should go further than current human rights legislation.

The bill should give greater protection to groups such as children, the elderly and those with learning difficulties, it said in a report.

Andrew Dismore, chairman of the joint committee, said a Bill of Rights would be a “constitutional landmark”.

“It would provide a framework both for protecting the liberty of the individual against the intrusion of state power, and for protecting the ‘little person’ against powerful interests,” he said.

But Shami Chakrabarti, director of campaign group Liberty, said that while the committee had made “vital contributions to our freedom and security”, this latest ambition would be hard to achieve.

“Building on existing protections is a noble aspiration which will be difficult to fulfil as long as so many other politicians denigrate our existing Bill of Rights - the Human Rights Act - in thought, word and deed,” she said.’

You can access a pdf copy of the full report here – pages 18-24 are particularly good on the case for and against the UK adopting a Bill of Rights.