Ministry of Justice Refuses to Publish Consultation Responses on the Rights Removal Bill
In May, the Consortium joined the Human Rights Consortium in Northern Ireland, the Wales Governance Centre and the Wales Council for Voluntary Action to write to Secretary of State for Justice, Dominic Raab MP. We asked him to publish the responses he received to his consultation on the British Bill of Rights (which has been dubbed the Rights Removal Bill by civil society organisations). Throughout the consultation period, many civil society organisations responded to the consultation voicing their concerns that the Bill was unnecessary, regressive, and threatening both to human rights and devolution.
We have now received a response to our letter, confirming that the Ministry of Justice will not be publishing the consultation responses. The letter claims that this is because full publication of all the responses is not standard practice, and instead the Government will release a general statement which will sum up the nature of the responses and address the concerns expressed within them.
We still argue that this is too vague, and that for the sake of transparency and accountability, the Ministry of Justice should publish all of the responses it received to its consultation on the Rights Removal Bill.