LABOUR councillor Sean Harkin brought a motion to Council in support of keeping the Human Rights Act 1998 in our country.
Cllr Bradbury (Con) spoke explaining how important the work and the convention on human rights were after the Second World War and that this was different to the Act. The Act though provides Britain with constitutional human rights and its own law. Advised to keep to three minutes it was hard for me to speak on why it is good to have the Act to strengthen the convention in Britain. Should we rescind our own law on human rights the message to our own citizens and the rest of the world would be profound. People do connect our own law to the great men who drew up the convention after the heinous crimes of Nazi Germany. For some those years of war still seem like only yesterday. Tampering with the interconnectedness of the convention and individual country’s own laws needs much care indeed. Cllr John Walsh (Con) stated that all laws can come to a point of needing revision and did not support the motion. I agree that the Act could be reviewed and revised but I would always defend its key values. Human Rights protect us from the development of state fascism and give us our liberty and our democracy.
Councillor Susan Haworth
Harper Green
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