‘If Our Government Turns on its Own People, We Will Need the ECHR to Protect Us’
t could never happen here. Could it?
One of the astonishing things about Brexit is the number of times one hears of people who supported it partly as a way to end freedom of movement into the UK, who apparently failed to realise that this would also work the other way round – to restrict their freedom of movement into the EU.
We hear them now complaining that they no longer have the same rights to travel within the EU, can no longer buy their dream retirement home on the continent, or are stuck in long lines at EU passport controls.
Now, we have anti-migrant campaigners arguing that the UK should leave the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), as a way to bypass human rights laws which protect migrants from being deported without adequate safeguards about their future treatment and rights in place.
Don’t they realise that the ECHR is there to protect them as well?
The whole point of the court is to ensure that people have an ultimate source of protection and redress against governments which overreach their powers or abuse their own citizens.
‘Ah, but’, I hear proponents of leaving the ECHR say, ‘we have perfectly good laws and courts within the UK to protect our human rights. We don’t need any interfering, European judges to tell us what to do’.
Except that we do.
Having a supranational body to act as the ultimate guarantor and protector of our rights, according to a set of international standards, is exactly what we need. Otherwise, what is to stop any future British government from passing laws to gradually erode our rights and protections within the UK? After all, Parliament is sovereign, and can pass any laws it likes, without being bound by its predecessors.
Moreover, unlike in many other countries, we have neither an independent head of state with the authority to rein in an overreaching executive, or a constitution with a bill of rights, against which to measure any legislation, or an elected upper chamber with the democratic legitimacy to act as a counter-balance, or if necessary, to overrule the House of Commons…
