European Court of Human Rights (Hansard, 5 December 1996)

§ 8. Sir Ivan Lawrence
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proposals he has for limiting the role of the European Court of Human Rights in overruling decisions of the British courts and the Westminster Parliament. [6155]

§ Mr. Howard
The Government have made proposals to improve the working of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Commission of Human Rights. Those proposals are designed to improve court procedures to provide a high standard among judges appointed to the court, and to ensure that proper weight is given—through the doctrine of the margin of appreciation—to the national character, traditions, religious beliefs and moral values of the countries that are signatories to the convention.

§ Sir Ivan Lawrence
Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the British people are getting fed up with being told what to do by that interfering foreign court, which does not appear to know or care about British culture and tradition? Will he reconsider the Government's refusal to incorporate the European convention on human rights into British law, and cheer the British people by extending the power of British courts over British business, rather than extending that of the European Court?

§ Mr. Howard
My hon. and learned Friend will not be surprised to hear that I have considerable sympathy with 1193 the first part of his question. I believe that the best way forward is to reform the court in the way in which we are seeking to do, rather than incorporate the convention into our domestic law, which would require our courts to make political judgments about a wide range of matters that are at present determined by our elected and democratically accountable Parliament. Such judgments are the proper function of Parliament, not the courts.

§ Mr. Dalyell
The Home Secretary said just now that he had sympathy with the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence), who described the European Court of Human Rights as an "interfering foreign court". Is that really the Government's view?

§ Mr. Howard
If the hon. Gentleman does not appreciate the immense frustration that that court's recent decisions have given rise to up and down the country, he is severely misjudging the mood of the people.

§ Mr. Garnier
Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that the European Court of Human Rights has nothing whatever to do with the European Union or the European Court of Justice? Will he also confirm that if we were—unwisely—to incorporate the convention on human rights into British law, it would greatly inhibit the freedom of the press? Does he not think that if we were to introduce any laws on, for example, the invasion of privacy, they should be dealt with by the House and not introduced by some other method?

§ Mr. Howard
As I said in answer to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence), I certainly agree that such matters should be decided in this democratically accountable House and the other place, and not in the European Court of Human Rights. I can certainly confirm that the answer to the first question asked by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) is that, indeed, the European Court of Human Rights has nothing to do with the European Union.

§ Mr. Beith
If the Home Secretary thinks that the European Court of Human Rights is an interfering foreign court, why are British judges still sent to take part in it? Does he realise that, if the court is made less effective, he will be denying human rights not only to British citizens but to citizens of all signatory countries in the Council of Europe, who are currently protected by it? Does he recognise that incorporation would assist in ensuring that the judgments based on the European convention fitted this country's traditions and character?

§ Mr. Howard
I do not think that the reforms advocated by the Government would in any way make the court less effective. If anything, they might make it more effective—but within proper parameters. A number of recent decisions of that court—not least the one it reached on the killing in Gibraltar—have caused widespread offence in this country. If the right hon. Gentleman and his party do not recognise that fact, they too are guilty of a severe misjudgment of the mood of the people.

§ Mr. Jacques Arnold
Should we not bear it in mind that the European convention on human rights was set up at a time when individuals in eastern Europe were being 1194 shipped off to the gulags under their communist Governments? Should we not also bear it in mind that the convention was set up due to fears that countries such as France and Italy would fall under communist rule and that therefore a means of safeguarding individuals was necessary? Given the collapse of communism and that threat to human rights, is not the convention and its court superfluous and should it not be scrapped?

§ Mr. Howard
My hon. Friend is right about the background of circumstances against which the convention and the court were set up. Those who set the court up would be pretty astonished at some of the judgments that it has made in recent years. I do not, however, entirely follow my hon. Friend along the road to the conclusion that he has identified because I think that it is possible for us to reform the court. We have put on the table specific proposals to achieve that objective, which I very much hope will be accepted.

§ Mr. Henderson
I welcome the conversion of the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) to the policy view that the European convention on human rights should be incorporated into British law. He, like the Labour party, understands that the main problem is not that European courts are overruling British courts but that British citizens have inadequate access to any court to establish human rights.
It takes too long to go to Europe and costs too much. On this Thursday—

§ Madam Speaker
Order. I have not yet heard a question from the hon. Gentleman.

§ Mr. Henderson
Here comes a question.

§ Madam Speaker
Now.

§ Mr. Henderson
Now. In the week before United Nations Human Rights Day next Tuesday, should not patriotic parties support Labour's policy that human rights should come home?

§ Mr. Howard
That would lead to the disadvantages that I identified in answer to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton, who, long before the Labour party, came to the opinion that the convention should be incorporated. The assertions in the lengthy introduction to the hon. Gentleman's question about the access of citizens of this country to our courts were preposterous. Our courts afford full protection for human rights.