LL207 Civil Liberties and Human Rights

After the United Kingdom’s successful exit from the European Union, the conservative leaning newspaper, The Home News, ran an extremely critical story about the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act 1998. The legal team at The Absolute Truth, a newspaper founded upon the principle of complete political impartiality, has hired you to fact check the validity of their main claims. The editors of The Absolute Truth do not require you to support or deny the claims made by The Home News. Instead, the editors of The Absolute Truth would like to apply the case law of BOTH the European Court of Human Rights and the UK judiciary, to the claims made by the newspaper. It is the application of the law that is most important to the editors of The Absolute Truth. Moreover, if the case law is undecided, The Absolute Truth would also like to incorporate academic opinion into your advice.  

 

Claim 1: Judicial interpretation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, by both the European Court of Human Rights and our own domestic judges, has resulted in an almost unlimited right to privacy that prevents our government from properly policing its citizens. 

 

Claim 2: Section 3 and Section 4 of the Human Rights Act 1998 undermine parliamentary sovereignty by giving unelected judges an unconstitutional power that allows them to overturn Acts of Parliament.  

 

Claim 3: The European Court of Human Rights through the 'living instrument' theory has created human rights not contained within the European Convention on Human Rights that go beyond the rights as they were originally imagined by the Convention's authors.  

 

Provide The Absolute Truth with accurate legal advice on the above three claims. Each claim carries equal marks and weighting. 1500 words

Using case law, legislation and secondary commentary in your answer, critically discuss whether the United Kingdom's courts have struck an appropriate balance between protecting individual liberties and state security in its anti-terror cases. 1500 words

 

 

1. Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the principles of civil liberties and human rights and identify key criticisms of the operation of the legal framework  

 

2. Show a critical awareness of the impact of the HRA 1998 

 

3. Analyse problem based scenarios, identify and apply relevant legal principles to reach a logical conclusion 

 

4. Conduct independent research using appropriate learning strategies.