This is a Human Rights and English Law (LLB) law question. The question is on the assignment criteria field of this application form below - Essay Example

According to Feldman, individual rights must be balanced against social goals3 and he views human rights as being linked to the conditions necessary for a democracy; human rights “help to establish the conditions of free speech, tolerance, equality and mutual respect for people’s dignity…”4 Locke lays the foundation of a civil society upon the premise that people surrender their natural freedoms to a system of common laws in order that they receive the protection of the Government and it is this system of laws that restrains them from harming others to enforce their natural laws.

5 In the aftermath of World War II and the Nazi atrocities, it was Winston Churchill who first pressed for “the environment of human rights” which led to the drafting and implementation of the Universal Convention of Human Rights.6 The Preamble to the Convention establishes “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family” as the basis upon which its Articles are founded.7 This is the basis for the European Convention on Human Rights, which is echoed in the Bill of Rights of most countries, that uphold human rights and fundamental freedoms8.

The United Kingdom does not have a formal written and codified Constitution, there is an unwritten set of rules comprised of the Acts of Parliament, judicial decisions as well as political practices that form the basis of Constitutional practice within the U.K.9 Parliament is sovereign, as articulated by Oxford Professor A.V. Dicey who stated that “in theory, Parliament has total power, it is sovereign” thereby it is the source of all valid authority.10 Therefore, within the UK, the European Convention was not directly relevant to statutory interpretation11 until the introduction of the Human Rights Act of 1998.

However, as pointed out by Justice Arden, Parliamentary sovereignty is still preserved and the Courts “are not given