Human Rights in Europe - Essay Example

?Social Policy Everyone needs equitable treatment from the government, civil society and other people around them in the society. The European Commission on Human Rights was established to ensure that equality was assured to all people regardless of age, gender, social status and economic ability among other factors. It is common for people or institutions to treat individuals differently depending on the above mentioned factors; and these cases are punishable by law if a person or institution is convicted. Before the Human Rights Act of 1998 was passed, all human rights breech cases were heard at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The United Kingdom parliament passed the Human Rights Act of 1998 to entrench the convention and its provisions in the country, and have human rights breach cases tried locally without having to take them to Strasbourg. The law came to effect on October 2, 2000 but was received with mixed feelings and widespread criticism. In its provisions, the law stipulated that every public body should uphold the rights of all individuals, failure to which courts should try those cases in accordance to the convention. The aim of this essay is to analyse the law from a social perspective, describe and criticize the extent to which the Act succeeds in protecting and upholding the right of vulnerable groups, and give appropriate recommendations (British Institute of Human Rights 2008, p. 14). Description Human Rights The Human Rights Act of 1998 was passed as an extension to the pre-existing European Commission on Human Rights; therefore, all the human rights stipulated by the commission also apply for the law. These include basic human rights, for instance, the rights to education, life, liberty, fair trial, privacy, thought, religion, expression, marriage and security, and freedoms from torture and slavery among others. However, the most relevant of all freedoms in a social setting is the freedom from discrimination. This implies that a person’s race, age, gender or any other factor should not be used against a person to deny him or her opportunities or infringe into others rights and freedoms (Dean 2007, p. 8). The Act stipulates that all suspected cases of human rights violation by public bodies on individuals should be tried in local courts, and the courts should base all judgements on the stipulations of the convention. This means that no court in the United Kingdom can override the decisions arrived at the European court for human rights in Strasbourg. However, the Act allows the courts to make decisions in contravention with the convention on condition of incompatibility, but that does not mean that the case will be nullified. The incompatibility clause gives the accused a better chance of succeeding in an appeal at Strasbourg and gives the public and civil society the strength to pressurize the government for amendments (White, Broadbent and Brown 2009, p. 51). Equal Opportunities The Act enables equal opportunities for all in terms of education and other rights, without much consideration of the differences in the social hierarchy given by society according to various real and perceived differences. In fact, the Act gives the accused equal rights as those given to victims, enabling courts to reach a judgment without presuming an accused person to be guilty before trial. In addition, any person seeking the services of a government agency or office suspects that a certain factor is causing the agency to give better treatment to others, then the person can go to court and accuse the firm or office holders of not allowing equal opportunities. This is more so in the case of vulnerable groups of the population including the aged, children, women and girls, those suffering from terminal diseases, and persons with disabilities among others. The law stipulates that due to the propensity of institutions to discriminate against these people, the courts should be keen and stern when dealing with such cases (Bagilhole 2009, p. 56). Anti-discriminatory Concepts The clause on freedom of assembly allows people to interact with each other based on shared ideologies, beliefs, culture and opinions among other characteristics. Therefore, the Act gave public bodies an obligation to treat all people and groups equally, failure to which they would face the full force of the law through the judiciary. In addition, when dealing with cases with a religious inclination, they have to be careful to adhere to the clause that allows people to think, have a conscience, and a religion of their choice without undue influence from anyone. In these cases, the Act expects courts to consider a person’s religion and other cultural factors before passing a sentence, enabling people to have different ways of expressing their opinions without fear of discrimination. Finally, the Act gives every citizen the right to participate freely in elections as voters or as candidates without undue limitations, which means that no citizen in the United Kingdom can be denied the right to be voted for or to vote without legal reasons (Meer 2010, pp. 197-215). Analysis Definition of Public Bodies The Act is not clear on which public bodies it expects to adhere to its human rights provisions, while this definition is clear for government owned agencies and their affiliates, private companies and corporations have argued in courts that the definition does not include them. In the United Kingdom, independent firms offer more than 90 per cent of care home and domiciliary care services in the country. This exposes vulnerable people especially the old and the terminally ill to discrimination and abuse of their right without any protection by the law. For instance, on disagreeing with a patient’s relatives, one home in Birmingham city gave the patient, a woman, a notice to leave the home, leaving her without care despite her willingness to pay for the services. When the courts received the case, they were forced to rule that this was not a breach of the human rights of the woman since the home is not classified as a public body. Therefore, in this case the Act failed to protect a vulnerable person due to ambiguity or exclusion of a group of bodies from its provisions. This means that the over 300,000 vulnerable old people in the United Kingdom society are not protected by the Act (Larkin 2009, pp. 15; Laird 2010, p. 380). The Act and the Youth Youth is a stage in life when a person decides what becomes of him or her in the future and learns to take responsibility for one’s thoughts and actions. By definition of the Act, young people are among the vulnerable groups, apparently because some people can take advantage of their youthful energy and use it for selfish purposes. However, this law is one of the many agents in today’s society that leads young people to a life of irresponsibility and misbehaviour, by assuming that they cannot think for themselves, and somebody has to do it for them (White, Harbour and Williams 2004, p. 128). The Act and Freedom of the Press While the Act upholds the freedom of expression, it also has a clause saying that everyone has a freedom to privacy. Especially for celebrities and other public figures, there is a remarkably thin line between their private and public lives, and they should keep hidden what they would rather not have in public media. However, politicians and others could use the clause for privacy, only allowing into the public domain information that they chose and hiding that which may be incriminating, thereby curtailing the freedom of the press. Other Limitations of the Act This Act was meant for public bodies, and there is no law in the United Kingdom that enables the use of the Human Rights Act of 1998 for private cases. However, since its inception, courts have been using the Act as a point of references even in private cases involving individuals or public corporations. This shows the power that the Act vests on the judiciary, whereby judges can decide when and how to apply an Act in total disregard to its provisions. In addition, the convention was not made for the United Kingdom only, and, therefore, has many components that are inapplicable directly to the situation in the United Kingdom. Therefore, instead of adopting the convention in its original state, government should have made some modifications. These incompatibilities have given too much power to the judiciary, whereby a judge can claim incompatibility if he or she wants the implementation of another Act for any reason (Malleson and Moules 2010, p. 270). Finally, there has been wide criticism for the Act, with the civil society claiming that it gives priority to the rights of criminals before their victims. For instance, some terror suspects could not be deported because it would allegedly expose them to the harsh conditions in Afghanistan, neither could they be detained for long since investigations were not complete and they had to be released. Conclusion The Human Rights Act of 1998 came to strengthen the human rights provisions given by the European convention on human rights, by allowing cases to be heard locally and not in Strasbourg, as was the norm. However, the Act has many limitations and ambiguities such that it is causing more problems than it solves; in fact, it causes discrimination of some vulnerable groups instead of protecting their rights. The right thing for the government to do is to pass a new law stipulating the human rights and repeal the 1998 Act, which will be in line with parliamentary sovereignty, since each country in the union can pass its own laws regardless of conventions in which it is a part. This decision is better than continual changing of the Act that may result in more ambiguities and loss of meaning. References Bagilhole, B 2009, Understanding equal opportunities and diversity, The Policy Press, Bristol. British Institute of Human Rights (BIHR) 2008, The Human Rights Act – changing lives, BIHR, London. Dean, H 2007, ‘Social policy and Human Rights: Rethinking the Engagement’, Social Policy and Society, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1-12. Laird, S 2010, Practical social work law, Pearson Education Limited, Harlow. Malleson, K and Moules, R 2010, The legal system, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Meer, N 2010, ‘The implications of the ED race equality and employment directives for British anti-discrimination legislation’, Policy and Politics, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 197-215. Larkin, M 2009, Vulnerable groups in health and social care, Sage, London. White, R, Broadbent, G and Brown, K 2009, Law and the social worker, Learning Matters, Exeter. White, R, Harbour, H and Williams, R 2004, Safeguards for young minds: Young people and protective legislation, Gaskell, London. Read More