Explain What Is Meant By Public Authorities

Introduction

One of the purposes of The Human Rights Act 1998 (the Act) was to create an avenue for breaches of a European Convention on Human Rights in United Kingdom Courts, without the need to resort to going to the European Court of Human Rights. However, it also exists to curb the powers of public authorities, in the sense that it makes it unlawful for any public authority to act in a way that is incompatible with a Convention, hence why Section 6 bears importance regarding the Act as a whole, a section that focuses on what is meant by ‘public authority’. This essay will largely examine exactly what is meant by ‘acts of public authorities’, as well as the importance of Subsection 6(5) and the implications and consequences of Subsection

Whatever the meaning of public authorities could stretch to in a different context, Subsection 6(3) defines a public authority as a ‘court or a tribunal’ or ‘any person certain of whose functions are functions of a public nature but does not include either House of Parliament or a person exercising functions in connection with proceedings in Parliament’. A court is a type of tribunal that is generally a government institution, and a tribunal generally suggests less formality than a court, which is significant as it implies that the Act is supposed to apply not only to high-level public authorities, but also lesser

The implications of this will be addressed later in the final paragraph, however there is another worrying implication that is raised in a House of Lords and House of Commons’ Joint Commission on Human Right’s Session, which is that the narrow definition of what a public authority results in the fact that “many private and voluntary sector providers of public services are considered to fall outside the scope of the Act, with no obligation to comply with the rights and freedoms it incorporated into domestic law” , despite the concern, this view does not seem fully warranted, as those “private and voluntary sector providers of public services” still have ‘public functions’ and therefore are subject to the same limits as a governmental organisation. If there is an issue, it is in the lack of clarity, as it could be misinterpreted or ignored as a result, therefore that should be remedied to make the meaning more