The wrong of rights?

An important topic for discussion if you are looking at civil liberties, the judiciary, or constitutional reform

Today Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, finally launched a Green Paper on rights. You may think that this would be welcomed by rights campaigners, but it has been judged harshly and is widely viewed as a political exercise rather than the outcome of deep thinking about the constitution and the balance between the individual and the state. Say the Independent:

‘Yesterday’s Green Paper proposes a Bill which will bring together many existing legal rights in a single document. This might sound like a good idea, but it is largely an exercise in repeating the provisions of the 1998 Human Rights Act. As for the “responsibilities” section, does the Government, for instance, really need to restate our duty to “pay taxes” and “obey the law”?

The Green Paper also suggests we should have new economic and social “rights” such as access to free healthcare and a right to “equality”, but these statements are so vague as to be largely meaningless. At the other extreme, they could open the door to undesirable judicial activism.

For all the grand constitutional clothing of this Green Paper, it is essentially a political exercise. The idea of a new Bill of Rights and responsibilities was first proposed by Mr Brown when he was Chancellor, to counter a Tory criticism that the Human Rights Act was impeding Britain’s ability to deal with illegal migrants and imposing unacceptable costs on business.

Yet what has emerged from this political calculation looks like a half-baked – and possibly dangerous – attempt to create a legacy by a struggling government. Our freedoms, stated or unwritten, should not be used as party political weapons.’

If the government really serious about rights then why do they seem determined to press ahead with plans such as ID cards which infringe the right to privacy? As Henry Porter points out in the Guardian, an independent report has just been published which questions the legality of the database state:

‘...the report makes this point in its executive summary: “A quarter of the public-sector databases reviewed are almost certainly illegal under human rights or data protection law; they should be scrapped or substantially redesigned. More than half have significant problems with privacy or effectiveness and could fall foul of a legal challenge.”

This really excellent piece of work by the Foundation for Information Policy Research, led by Professor Ross Anderson, is all that you need to make up your mind about the lunatic expenditure (£16 billion per annum on IT projects), the illusory benefits of data sharing and the threat to individuals. It also claims that fewer than 15% of databases assessed “are effective, proportionate and necessary with a proper legal basis for privacy intrusions”.’