Threat to the Human Rights Act

Rt. Hon Liz Truss MP, Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, has reiterated the Government’s intention to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights ‘in due course’. She said that she wanted the UK’s Supreme Court to be the ‘ultimate arbiter of those rights’, but that the Government would not pursue withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights.

Joanna Cherry, MP for Edinburgh South West, reminded the Secretary of State that there is ‘almost universal opposition to the repeal of the Human Rights Act in Scotland; this is reflected in the Scottish Parliament and across Scottish civic society’ and the Secretary of State said that she would be meeting the Scottish Justice Minister shortly to discuss these issues.

For more detail of the discussion during Justice Questions, see here.