According to the Irish News, a British Judge has attacked the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) – because it’s taken too much power away from him.
Not just any Judge, Lord Hoffmann is the second most senior Law Lord, says the ECHR is trying to create a “federal law of Europe”. A former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, is backing him too.
Hoffmann is concerned that the court has misused its jurisdiction to impose uniform rules on member states. In the past the court has ruled on issues such as night flights at Heathrow Airport, the right to silence and the use of hearsay evidence in court. Hoffmann thinks these three topics don’t come under ‘human rights’ – though if you wanted to assert your right to silence (as a human), or your right to a peaceful night sleep under busy Heathrow airspace, you may disagree.
Lord Hoffmann, who is retiring soon, gave this shot across the bough of the ECHR as his leaving gift. “We remain an independent nation with its own legal system, evolved over centuries of constitutional struggle and pragmatic change,” he said.
“I do not suggest belief that the United Kingdom’s legal system is perfect but I do argue that detailed decisions about how it could be improved should be made in London, either by our democratic institutions or by judicial bodies which, like the Supreme Court of the United States, are integral with our own society and respected as such.”
Lord Falconer told Radio 4 “It may be doing what it conceives to be its job but there are dangers if you start to deal too much in the detail … Focus on the important big issues, not trying to say ’I think the law should be a little bit like this or a little bit like that’.”
If I were in any way educated in the way the law works, I’d be questioning quite why so many people in the UK undermine the judicial system (that’s how Hoffmann and Falconer see it) by approaching the ECHR to get these supposedly silly judgements overturned.
To get to the ECHR you’ve been through the British legal system, including the house of Lords, where Hoffmann and Falconer sit. Questions remain as to whose job it is to tidy up the British legal system, to make it fairer for all. So long as the British way of doing things is referring quite so much to Europe, it is a sign that the British legal system needs some tightening up, refreshing, and brought back down to earth with a bang – something Hoffmann and Falconer could have got on with instead of criticising the people who mop up their mess!
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