Repel the Tories’ attacks on our democratic rights


Paul Heron, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers (personal capacity)

In early October the Tories set themselves against the Human Rights Act. Leading Tory ministers Cameron, May and Grayling all contributed speeches and newspaper interviews reheating Daily Mail headlines to justify their stance against the Act.

In their ‘little Englander’ speeches terrorists, foreigners, and prisoners have all used human rights to override our sovereignty, they declared.

In a twist of irony Prime Minister Cameron in the earlier part of his Tory conference speech mentioned the mid-Staffordshire Hospital abuse scandal, but failed to mention that the elderly and vulnerable who had suffered there are currently using the Human Rights Act to take legal action.

The Tories are in an internal meltdown as they deal with their electoral threat from Ukip. This has resulted in Tory ministers, in a scattergun approach, deriding human rights as some form of foreign concept imposed on the UK. Yet the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) was developed as a result of the revulsion the European working class had towards the horrors of world war two in general, and the attacks on workers by fascism in particular.

The value of human rights is welcomed by the working class – it is seen as another potential legal shield against the excesses of capitalism. The EHCR is of course limited in its scope and impact. At the time it was hoped that it would act as a way of legally limiting the oppression by the state, and would champion such rights as freedom of speech and the right to organise.

Extension

In later years it was hoped that human rights would not just cover issues such as political and civil rights – such as freedom of expression, freedom from torture, slavery, arbitrary arrest and detention, but that it would also embrace social and economic rights such as the right to work, education, health and housing – although these rights have been historically resisted by Western capitalism.

Limited as it is there is still value in defending the Human Rights Act. The law is not completely and totally bound to the interests of the ruling class. Law and the courts have been used successfully by the trade union movement and socialists to defend workers’ rights.

Law can be influenced by developments in society. Indeed the ECHR, and its interpretation has developed over time in a way that can assist workers.

Take for instance the fact that in the English common law there is no right to privacy; yet there is something akin to that in Article 8 of the ECHR.

Currently, blacklisted workers in the UK are using the right to privacy contained within Article 8 and Article 11 – freedom of association – to pursue those building companies complicit in victimising trade unionists.

The workers’ movement must campaign to defend the Human Rights Act. It can be a valuable additional weapon in defending against oppression while understanding that united mass action of the working class is the only guarantee to secure democratic rights.