Human Rights Act Of 1998 Analysis

Critically analyze the impact of the “Human Rights Act of 1998”

All humans are entitled to their fundamental rights and freedoms that cannot be violated under any conditions. Across globe wide attention is being given to identifying and protecting human rights in constitutional systems. Human Rights Act of 1998 (HRA 1998) is a UK Law came into force to safeguard such rights in the UK. As a result all UK Citizens now enjoy a number of fundamental rights and freedoms protected by this Act such as Right to life, Right to freedom of expression, Right to liberty and security, and so on. The HRA 1998 has derived under the influence of European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in particular. Significance of this Act is that it allowed human rights

The following analysis is based on the impact of the HRA 1998 which shall begin by looking at the historical context of the Act in brief. The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is an international treaty to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe drafted by the Council of Europe (CoE). The United Kingdom was one of the founding members of the CoE, which consists of 47 member states. Since 1953 UK has been bound by international law and committed to respect the rights established in the ECHR and has actively supported the Council of Europe and the ECHR. Until 1966 petitions by ordinary people to the ECHR against public authority in case of noncompliance and violation of their rights was not permitted by the UK Government which controlled individuals from taking their case to ECtHR. However subsequent to granting the right of individual petition Briton became one of the countries with highest number of cases before the court. The increasing awareness of Human Rights in the UK and the changing culture may have been partially responsible for these large numbers. Furthermore the UK did not have a bill or charter of

The primary positive effect of this Act is that it brought most of the rights guaranteed under the ECHR into UK domestic law, as a result individuals were able to take their cases to domestic courts, instead of waiting indefinitely for justice at the ECHR. The Human Rights Act made it illegitimate for public authorities such as hospitals, social services, police, government departments, etc. in the country to act in breach of the basic rights and freedoms established in the ECHR. The public authorities were put under an obligation to treat everyone with fairness, equality and dignity. The Act aims to provide the care and respect every person entitled to irrespective of their age, gender, literacy, race, colour, sexuality, etc. Requiring public authorities to be certain that their judgements and activities do not violate rights of humans under any circumstances to a great extent lessened the need to go to the court to get protection. The Human Rights Act bought rights home which contributed towards making the UK better without a costly court process. As part of the legislation all citizens are entitled to benefit from this irrespective of how small or big of a case it may possibly