‘We should all be very suspicious of the very people it holds to account telling us they are doing us a favour by watering it down’ - Laura Trevelyan

Responding to the latest briefing from Justice Secretary Dominic Raab in which he suggested that scrapping the Human Rights Act and replacing it with a Bill of Rights would ensure the principle of free speech, Laura Trevelyan, Amnesty’s Human Rights in the UK Campaign Manager, said:

“Scrapping the Human Rights Act has long been the intention of Mr Raab and others not because they want to extend any protections, but because they want to slash away at the powers ordinary people have got to challenge the Government and its decisions.

“I hope people don’t fall for this latest attempt to mislead; just this week the Human Rights Act protected free speech when a journalist used it to defend the confidentiality of his sources.

“When you think about the Human Rights Act think of Hillsborough, or the successful challenge to police banning women from holding a vigil for Sarah Everard, or how the Government will be forced to hold a proper inquiry into its handling of the Covid pandemic.

“The Human Rights Act is the most important weapon ordinary people have against the state and wrongful treatment, and we should all be very suspicious of the very people it holds to account telling us they are doing us a favour by watering it down.”