Urgent appeal to Scottish Parliament Committee to look at devolution impacts of the #RightsRemovalBill

The UK Government has introduced the #RightsRemovalBill at Westminster. This will scrap the Human Rights Act and make it much more difficult for individuals to access justice and hold the Government to account. This Bill will water down our human rights.

The Bill proposals a while back, also gave scant regard to devolution differences. Human Rights are a foundational building block of devolution, and to shift this foundation raises significant constitutional issues and questions.

That is why the Consortium, together with Amnesty International in Scotland, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner for Scotland, and JustRight Scotland have written to the Convenor of the Scottish Parliament Constitution Committee to ask them to hold an inquiry into ‘the devolution impacts of the
changes to the Human Rights Act so that both the Scottish and Westminster Parliaments can provide proper scrutiny of such an important and fundamental part of the UK’s constitutional legal framework. This would be additional and complementary to the legislative consent process for this Bill, and we would request that the Committee makes the Westminster Parliament aware of this process and shares its
outcomes.’

To be clear -this #RightsRemovalBill is no small thing – it will significantly impact human rights law and Scots law – so we really need our MSPs to stop and consider this in detail, and raise any concerns with the Westminster Parliament.

You can read the letter sent to Convenor Clare Adamson MSP here.