Human Rights

Parliamentary Sovereignty and Human Rights

Parliamentary Sovereignty and Human Rights Act 1998

Introduction Human Rights is the topic that is widely debated on the news channels, entertainment channels, magazines, advertisements, billboards and wherever the sight is gone human rights is the topic of the century. The Human rights have been under the limelight of the communities worldwide since the 16th and 17th centuries. Their influence was the strongest in the French revolution and also many countries in the 21st century have been able to exercise the protection that they have under the human rights domain (Allan, 1983, p.27). UK has been the underdog still in promoting human rights within its own country, though they are referred to as pioneers of the term human rights. Discussion Human rights 1998 act received the Royal Assent on November 9th, 1998 and became an Act of Parliament and was enforced on 2nd of October 2000. The Act makes available in UK courts a remedy for any breach of a Convention right and that to without the need of going to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ( Loveland, 1996 p.530). Under the constitution parliament is supreme. Parliamentary supremacy means that the legislative body is the top most authority to all other government institutions, including any executive or judicial bodies. The courts cannot overturn its law-making and no Parliament can pass laws that future Parliaments cannot. It is very much evidenced that parliament is supreme in the UK. The human rights act 1998 has undermined Parliamentary sovereignty in a number of ways. It bounds the actions of succeeding parliaments. If a parliament of future debates the incorporation of capital punishment or allow coercion on caught bandits then the only thing that can stop this is the parliament itself Article 3 of the Human Rights act says “No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” (Legislation, 2013). No individual, foreign pacts and agreements could restrict the Parliament, only members of Parliament can stop a bill from being passed by voting it out. The introduction of HRA 1998 has changed the role that judges used to play before. Judges have become more dynamic on human Rights issues. They are interpreting the laws with their own spin, and this attitude has led to the resentment of the government and exceptional cases have arisen due to this and the famous one was the one in 2003 of Belmarsh(Young, 2009, p.127). Though it is the state which wins the majority of cases involving the human rights. Human Rights Act 1998 is primarily focused on the rights of individuals. The rights of individuals in the Act range from freedom of thought, freedom of expression, freedom to live a life without any pressure from someone, right of security, prohibition of forced labour and slavery. The new anti-terror laws after the 9/11 clearly ignore the HRA 1998 which is clearly suggesting that government and parliament both are supreme(Elliot, 2004, ...