A Damp Squib in the Long Grass: The Report of the Commission on a Bill of Rights

Abstract

In December 2012, the Commission on a Bill of Rights, established by the UK Government, issued its final report. The Report advances very limited, inchoate proposals for a UK Bill of Rights that are essentially superficial in nature. The Report fails to grapple with the fundamental questions that would naturally fall to be confronted as part of a serious debate about the future direction of human rights protection in the UK. The failure of the majority clearly to articulate what it understands a Bill of Rights to be renders vacuous its recommendation that such legislation be adopted in due course. While the proposals contained in the Report are highly unlikely to be implemented in the foreseeable future, the shortcomings of the Report - and of the process that yielded it - contain important lessons for how future debates of this nature ought to be conducted.

Keywords: human rights, bill of rights, bill of rights commission, human rights act, european court of human rights, european convention on human rights

JEL Classification: K00, K10, K19, K20, K29, K30, K39