The European Convention on Human Rights

Apologies MaizieD from me.
I’ve had a very emotional day and I’m sorry.

I read your post (I jumped in with my remark and I hadn’t seen yours) and am suitably chastened. I’m wrong. .

I don’t understand why people that were happy for us to leave the EU thereby losing the Dublin agreement but are happy to leave the ECHR which protects us all .

I don't under what you are saying. The UK was one of the first states to join the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), signing it in 1950 and being the first country to ratify it in 1951.

I would say I am moving towards review at the very least and may support leaving it, I have seen the move against the supreme court ruling, and that causes me great unease, it is not as simple as listing the rights and saying aren't these wonderful, there are frequently clashes of rights and I don't think there is often a nuanced view of these clashes.

Thank you for your link to the Bonavero report, Maizie.

It should be set as homework for Farage, Badenoch and their cheerleaders as well as editors of the Telegraph, Mail, Express and so on but why let the truth get in the way of fiction?

This recommendation should be acted on:

This problem of misreporting is exacerbated by the fact that the Home Office does not publish clear and accessible data on such appeals. The data that is reported shows that the number of foreign national offenders who successfully appeal against deportation on human rights grounds alone is a tiny proportion of the number of foreign national offenders overall: 0.73% in the latest year for which data is available. We recommend that in future, data on the success rate of human rights-based appeals to the First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal be systematically collected and published to inform debate and policy-making.

as well as the precise reason why an appeal has been successful so that those papers have no excuse for publishing erronoeus and inflammatory stories as if the Leveson report never happened.

Freya5- The Uk has indeed been signed up to ECHR since 1950. Tony Blair, in 2006 Blair sought to review ECHR after claims that the ECHR laws to date after criticising a senior judge for preventing the deportation of 9 Afghan refugees high jacked a plane to Britain. He thought that court ruling was "barmy". He sought to amend to act to allow deportations of terror suspects and as a result the UK aligned further with other EU countries interpretation of ECHR at that time.

The UK is not in the EU now following Brexit as you state. If you are suggesting that the UK should ditch ECHR entirely what, if anything, would you like to see as its replacement, to protect the human rights of UK citizens? Plus as OP Elegran asks, who would you trust to draw up a new set in the future?

Pity Tony Blair didn’t adhere to the bill himself. I still think of him as a war criminal and cannot get past that.

Any ECHR review by Tony Blair in 2006 is old news. The challenge of OP is what should replace ECHR to protect human rights of UK citizens ( as Badenoch and Farage promote ditching) and who would you trust to draw up a new set going forward....

Well you could rely on the democratic process at the next election, then if enough people vote for a party committed to 'ditching', the population have decided that they trust that particular party to implement new legislation.

Thats true Galaxy. However I would prefer to see those parties seeking to ditch ECHR responsibly set out how they plan to protect UK citizen's UK human rights when ECHR ditched ahead of the GE and specifically how ditching ECHR would protect the Northern Ireland Good Friday agreement.

Personally I could not easily trust a party unwilling or unable to think this trough and set out such detail. However I accept others may be more willing to trust they and NI citizens will be adequately protected without knowing such detail...

through...

”We are not in the EU now, so those laws should not apply. Up until 1998 our human rights laws were more than adequate, and I cannot remember any huge protests saying they weren't.” Freya 5

What worked (for everyone?) before 1998 may not be enough in 2025 to legally protect all individuals. Daily we see the effect of unprincipled national leaders all over the world on the lives of those living in their countries. New dangers face the vulnerable as well as all the old ones.

”ECHR came about to prevent the atrocities of World War2 and highlight the need for a legally binding instrument to protect fundamental human rights and ensure states upheld them. Leaving ECHR will not achieve her [Badenoch's] deportation plan in itself and the world is not in a stable place.... “ LemonJam

”The ECHR is enacted in the UK through the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA), which incorporates Convention rights into UK law. This allows individuals to challenge public bodies in UK courts if they consider their Convention rights are breached. “ Paynes Grey

The Convention Articles have been enacted as our own laws, so our use of them does not depend on our being a part of the EU. They still apply. Scrapping them and re-forming our own version would take time and money and a great deal of discussion by legal and political experts, so my own preference is to keep what has already been discussed and formulated, with additions and caveats added where they are relevant. However, basic humanitarian principles must remain.

Could those who believe that some Convention Rights should no longer apply please point out which ones they would scrap or modify, with their reasons? I repeat the list of Articles below for you to refer to, but there is more information online at www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/convention_ENG

ECHR Main Convention Articles

Article 1 - Obligation to respect Human Rights
• Article 2 – Right to life
• Article 3 – Prohibition of torture
• Article 4 – Prohibition of slavery and forced labour
• Article 5 – Right to liberty and security
• Article 6 – Right to a fair trial
• Article 7 – No punishment without law
• Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life
• Article 9 – Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
• Article 10 – Freedom of expression
• Article 11 – Freedom of assembly and association
• Article 12 – Right to marry
• Article 13 – Right to an effective remedy
• Article 14 – Prohibition of discrimination
• Article 15 – Derogation in time of emergency
• Article 16 – Restrictions on political activity of aliens
• Article 17 – Prohibition of abuse of rights
• Article 18 – Limitation on use of restrictions on rights

Additional Protocols
Protocol No. 1 (1952)
• Article 1 – Protection of property
• Article 2 – Right to education
• Article 3 – Right to free elections
Protocol No. 4 (1963)
• Article 1 – Prohibition of imprisonment for debt
• Article 2 – Freedom of movement
• Article 3 – Prohibition of expulsion of nationals
• Article 4 – Prohibition of collective expulsion of aliens
Protocol No. 6 (1983)
• Abolition of the death penalty (in peacetime)
Protocol No. 7 (1984)
• Article 1 – Procedural safeguards relating to expulsion of aliens
• Article 2 – Right of appeal in criminal matters
• Article 3 – Compensation for wrongful conviction
• Article 4 – Right not to be tried or punished twice (ne bis in idem)
• Article 5 – Equality between spouses
Protocol No. 12 (2000)
• General prohibition of discrimination
Protocol No. 13 (2002)
• Abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances
Protocol No. 16 (2013)
• Advisory opinions by the ECHR to national courts
www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/convention_ENG

No replies yet to my previous post, so I assume no-one has any objections to any of the Human rights in the ECHR list, except for the ones referring to the expulsion of aliens?
These are :-
Protocol No. 4 (1963)
• Article 4 – Prohibition of collective expulsion of aliens
and Protocol No. 7 (1984)
• Article 1 – Procedural safeguards relating to expulsion of aliens

Plus, of course, all those which treat aliens the same as nationals, ie as human beings.

Apologies if this has already been mentioned but am I right in thinking that only 16 or so cases have been overturned by the ECHR over the years. And yet people want everyone to lose their rights because of it.

MayBee70

Apologies if this has already been mentioned but am I right in thinking that only 16 or so cases have been overturned by the ECHR over the years. And yet people want everyone to lose their rights because of it.

I posted the link to this report a couple of days ago. This is what it says about the ECHR

Since 1980, there have been 29 judgments in UK cases at the ECtHR that have concerned either deportation (enforced removal of a foreign national) or extradition (removal of a person to another country for trial or to serve a sentence). In 16 of these cases, the Court found that a planned deportation or extra- dition by the UK government would not breach the European Convention and could go ahead.

78 For example, in 2017, the Court held that the UK government’s decision to deport a man who had lived in the UK since he was two years old did not violate the Convention, because the individual’s history of offending outweighed his Article 8 rights.

79 In the other 13 cases, the Court found that deportation or extradition by the UK government would violate the Convention.80 Its last finding of a violation relating to a planned deportation from the UK was in 2020.81 Only four of these 13 cases concerned the right to private and family life. The other nine cases concerned deportation or extradition to countries where there was a substantial risk that the individual would be tortured or (in one case) that evidence obtained by torture would be used.

The whole report is worth reading. It's by this group:

The Bonavero Institute of Human Rights is a research institute within the Faculty of Law at the University of Oxford.

This is the link again (sorry, the link's a bit long)

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2025-09/European%20Convention%20on%20Human%20Rights%20and%20Immigration%20Control%20in%20the%20UK_4%20Sept%202025.pdf

If the link doesn't work try searching on this

BONAVERO REPORT 3/2025 4 SEPTEMBER 2025

The report actually focuses on misrepresentation of human rights cases by the media.

You are right, Maybee and also the "chicken nuggets" case has been clarified upthread. I have also seen on FB someone alleging that a deportation was cancelled because "They don't like beards where he comes from" but I would imagine that any facial hair the man had was secondary to some other reason he had for not wanting to be deported back home - and that whichever news media had mentioned the beard hadn't made as much noise about whether or not the deportation went ahead or not.

Elegran Thu 09-Oct-25 15:02:43
"No replies yet to my previous post, so I assume no-one has any objections to any of the Human rights in the ECHR list, except for the ones referring to the expulsion of aliens?"

I have no objection and do think they be scrapped. Those parties that propose scrapping- Conservative and Reform should responsibly set out what if anything they propose to replace ECHR with...

It seems to me that the benefits of ECHR far outweigh 29 cases over 45 years that resulted in deportation or extradition as MaizieD highlighted and the media misrepresents disproportionately.

I have been listening to a podcast recently which was looking at what would happen if we repealed our membership.

Apparently it would not remotely help the asylum/migrant issue as there are loads of other laws as well as the courts that would prevent wholesale deportation.

Farage and Badenoch are selling their supporters a pup!

Our human rights are so precious

We cannot know what government we will have in the future who may try and take them away

Posters wishing to do away with our protections should bear this in mind. You, your family, a friend, may need it one day

Wyllow3

Our human rights are so precious

We cannot know what government we will have in the future who may try and take them away

*Posters wishing to do away with our protections should bear this in mind. You, your family, a friend, may need it one day*

I watched a documentary on iplayer the other day about how librarians in America are being sacked and are suffering death threats because of not removing books from their shelves eg The Handmaids Take and To Kill a Mockingbird. And yet people are supporting Trump like politicians in this country that will,given half a chance,take away the laws that protect us.

LemonJam When you posted "I have no objection and do think they be scrapped." did you mean to type "don't" ? that would make more sense with the rest of that post?

Sorry Elegran, my mistake I DON'T think they should be scrapped 🥱

This is what worries me as we sleepwalk towards a fascist government.

Once Reform (and the Tories) admit that migrants are not the cause of the country’s economic woes (they know that already, of course) who would they go after next? Which minority will be next? Zack Polanksi did say this on last night’s BBCQT

Children with SEND? Take away their right to an education? LBGTQ? Reform make no secret of disliking the Pride flag and the right of a same-sex couple to marry. Women? If America is removing the story of Gilead from the shelves you can bet that mini-Trump Farage will have similar aims in mind. Atwood’s novels have a habit of being uncannily prophetic. First they take away women’s right to work outside the home. Then they freeze their bank accounts making them reliant on men. Digital ID with biometric data will enable government to track those who try to run.

As I have said before, I think Farage will be gone before the next election (especially if the media stops its rather peculiar embargo on talking about Nathan Gill - did anyone else notice how Fiona Bruce shut that down?) but there are other same-minded people in the wings. Watching Yusuf rant, shout and tell bare-faced lies on last night’s QT (I had to switch off in the end) one wonders what would happen if he had any power.

All I can say is that I am glad we have a second chamber and a judiciary to put the brakes on.

You do know many many lesbians, gay men and women would see polanski and his party as a complete threat to their rights.

Those are my examples not Polanski’s. He just asked which minority next?