Demands for Rights Charter to be part of the Brexit Bill
The Government faced fierce criticism and questioning over its exclusion of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights from the EU Withdrawal Bill when the House of Commons debated the legislation in end 2017. After narrowly missing defeat on the issue, the Government assured MPs that they would publish a ‘rights-by-rights’ analysis of where Charter rights can be found in UK law. The Government duly published this analysis by 5th December but it received much criticism. Schona Jolly QC (human rights and equalities lawyer), said in the Guardian that the analysis “fails to tackle the legal reality that abandoning the charter indeed does remove rights that UK citizens currently enjoy and adds to the complexity, confusion and uncertainty surrounding the basis to protect and enforce substantive rights post-Brexit”.
Keir Starmer, Labour’s Brexit Secretary, called the analysis ‘woefully inadequate’ and has indicated that he will force a vote on keeping the EU Charter at the next Commons report stage on 16th/17th January.
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Image credit: ChiralJon, Flickr