The Human Rights Act in the Uk

The aim of this essay is to discuss the development of human rights legislation and whether the Human Rights Act has helped to protect the rights of British citizens.

The general aim of this essay is to;

1) To follow the development of human rights legislation, from the end of World War 2, to the present day.

2) And how the Human Rights Act 1998, has affected the lives of British Citizens, for example recently a law allowing terror suspects to be detained for up to 90 days without charge, but this was dropped as it was deemed to breach the rights of those being detained for such a long period of time.

After World War 2, appalled by the atrocities committed during the war, The United Nations adopted the universal Declaration of Rights in 1948. Although not legally binding, it urged member countries to promote certain rights contained within the declaration. The Universal Declaration was the first ever international, legal attempt to limit the behaviour of countries.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights contains 30 articles. But the most important of these are articles are considered to be the following;

o The right to life, liberty, property and security of person.

o The right to an education

o The right to employment, paid holidays, protection against unemployment and social security.

o The right to participate fully in cultural life.

o Freedom from torture or cruel, inhumane treatment or punishment

o Freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

o Freedom of expression and opinion.

In 1998 The Human rights act was given royal assent. The act made the rights contained within the Universal declaration of human rights, more effective within the UK. It did this by making it unlawful for any public body to act in a way which conflicted with the declaration. As well as this it also enabled UK to have breaches of their human rights rectified within UK courts, rather then having to travel to Strasbourg, which could cost thousands of pounds.

Since the act was given royal assent, in 1998, there have been a number of cases brought to the courts where a previous court decision has come into question, as to whether it breaches the individuals Human Rights, in accordance with the 1998 Human rights act.

One such case was Anne Marie Rogers’ legal fight to be given herceptin. Herceptin is a new drug, which has been developed to treat HER-2 strain breast cancer; due to the large cost of herceptin, Ј4000 for a year’s treatment, it has only been licensed to treat the advanced stages of HER-2 breast cancer. After a judge sided with the decision of Swindon Primary Care Trust, not to fund her herceptin treatment, as she had early stage HER-2 breast cancer, rather than the advanced stage for which they usually fund it, she then appealed against the Judge’s ruling. In her appeal she stated that the Trusts refusal to give her herceptin had been like a death sentence. This would go against article 3, her right to life, liberty and security of person. In her appeal the presiding judge stated that the decision of Swindon Primary Care Trust had been unlawful, as it was unfair to give the drug only to some of those whom it would help, rather than all of them.

Another way in which the 1998 human