Dominic Raab's plan for human rights law reform is to get its final coup de grace under lord chancellor Alex Chalk, according to media reports. The Bill of Rights Bill - introduced last summer and then shelved under Liz Truss's government - is technically still before parliament, awaiting a second reading in the House of Commons. However its future has been in doubt despite Raab's return to office under Rishi Sunak.
The bill 'is clearly going nowhere', Gazette columnist Joshua Rozenberg predicted last week.
Today’s Times newspaper reports a government source as saying: ’Dom’s departure sounded the death knell for the bill of rights. It won’t be coming back, or at least not in any form that resembles the current bill.’ Another government source quoted by the newspaper described the bill as a 'complete mess', noting that there is a 'mountain' of other legislation to get through parliament.
Raab introduced the measure in his first spell as lord chancellor in Boris Johnson’s administration. It would explicitly give UK courts supremacy over rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, create a higher threshold for foreign national offenders seeking to challenge deportations based on the right to a private life and introduce a new permission stage for human rights challenges.
On taking office for his second stint as lord chancellor, Raab said that the legislation would return to parliament ‘in the coming weeks’. However the bill faced widespread criticism, including from the Law Society, which said the measure would 'damage the rule of law and make it harder for people to protect their rights'. One Conseervative former lord chancellor, Robert Buckland, described the bill as ‘worse than useless’.
Chalk is expected to be sworn in this week as the sixth lord chancellor in six years.
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