YES“What have the Romans ever done for us?” is the old Monty Python joke. “What have human rights ever done for us?” might be asked by readers. But our Human Rights Act (HRA) has been a vital tool for justice. The Act has been of huge benefit to many ordinary people—and especially women—as the victims of crime.
The HRA, which incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), ended detention without trial, the use of torture, arbitrary detention of migrants; the bedroom tax being used against people with disability who need overnight carers. The “right to life” in the HRA was used to secure the reopening of the inquest into the death of Naomi Bryant, who was killed by a serial sex offender released on licence without appropriate supervision.