tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post5575233861278415224..comments2024-03-28T07:16:39.621+00:00Comments on Lallands Peat Worrier: Human Rights Act: "Oh what a tangled web we weave..."Lallands Peat Worrierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18276270498204697708noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-41512070977375430002010-05-25T09:03:51.385+01:002010-05-25T09:03:51.385+01:00I still haven't given up trying to convince yo...I still haven't given up trying to convince you on this Subrosa!<br /><br />I think there is a cogent case to be made precisely along the line you mention, I only find it strange the way you put it - victims of the Human Rights Act? Surely victims of collective neglect, a failure of the moral imagination and culpable social inattention. I think I see where you are coming from now. Partly, I need to start thinking less like a lawyer, in terms of specific articles and particular duties.<br /><br />Your argument is, I think - look at these innocent people who suffer, who are ignored, whose dignity is assailed by illness and poverty. Why do we never talk about their human rights? Why instead to we spend our time on rights to trial or the liberty of the subject or prison conditions?<br /><br />If that is your argument, a few defences. The European Convention is primarily concerned with civil and political rights - the relationship of the individual to the state on voting, subject to the State's interventions, whether on privacy or liberty or physical mistreatment. <br /><br />While there are international conventions on economic social and cultural rights, these generally don't have the same 'legal' character as the rights under the European Convention. This may explain somewhat the "villain's charter" line. While economic, social and cultural rights may be very relevant to any member of the population, questions of liberty, fair trials, reasonable treatment in custody - these are all rights of suspects and convicted persons, of little relevant to your average person. This is simply a feature of the constrained ambit of the European Convention - and hence the Human Rights Act. It doesn't really "fail" to address the very pertinent issue you mention, because it was never really trying to do so. <br /><br />Human rights is a big discourse. I've no problem with a language of protest couched in their terms. The Human Rights Act, however, is first and foremost a legalistic document, currently understood highly legalistically. Its important, I think, to keep some analytical space between these two ideas. The people you mention aren't the victims of the legalistic structure of the Convention. They struggle to benefit from it, that is for certain. <br /><br />However, that doesn't entail scrapping the Act. The issues which are covered by Convention Rights remain important. The admission should be an easy one to make: HRA doesn't solve every problem, answer every ill, salve ever wrong. <br /><br />Where its limitations cannot dispense justice, this seems to me to demand political attention to be paid to neglected issues, not the abolition of the Act.Lallands Peat Worrierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07238432265194046726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-28997421139302031982010-05-25T00:40:58.286+01:002010-05-25T00:40:58.286+01:00Excellent thanks. The tragedy of the HRA is that s...Excellent thanks. The tragedy of the HRA is that so many law-abiding people can become the victims of it. What about the pensioners who die of hypothermia or starvation every year. They are victims who don't realise those who profess to care for them (governments) are breaking the HRA. Perhaps I'm being over-sensitive.subrosahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00151702590329788260noreply@blogger.com