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BLACK WORKERS CONFERENCE 2023
sequently, workers and their union’s ability to seek justice in the UK courts will be limited and they will have to go to the ECtHR in Strasbourg, a lengthy and expensive process.
The UK has obligations and duties under international law to respect, protect and fulfil human rights
Section 6 - Acts of public authorities
Section 6 of the HRA makes it unlawful for public bodies to act in a way that is incompatible with a person’s Convention rights. This in effect imposes a duty, a positive obligation, on all public authorities including the Government, councils, and police to put measures in place to respect and protect people’s human rights. Limiting positive obligations would lead to contravention of the ECHR. These restrictions could deny conducting effective investigations into the loss of life as in the Grenfell fire, respect for family life as in the Windrush scandal, and redress for victims of misogyny and genderbased violence, racism, disability, and LGBT+ hate crime. Also, in relation to vital services such as healthcare, social care, and education needed
by women, BAEM, disabled, and LGBT+ people to live in dignity and safety. The Bill will seriously weaken judges’ powers to make sure public bodies protect people’s rights and investigate and learn when things go wrong as it would prohibit the courts from applying new positive obligations arising from judgments of the ECtHR and limit the application of current positive obligations if they, for example, impact on public authorities’ resources. These changes will adversely impact women, BAEM, disabled and LGBT+ workers leaving them without a remedy in the UK courts.
Time to campaign
This is only a drop in the ocean of problems with the Bill of Rights. Under this Bill, our ability to challenge the government and other public bodies would be extremely limited. For example, we might not be able to challenge the legality of deporting refugees to Rwanda or making the rights of bereaved families of those who died in police custody, effective. There has been an outcry from various organi-
sations including the TUC, JCHR, Law Society, and Liberty, all asking for Bill to be dropped. The government has persistently been threatening to dismantle the Human Rights Act 1998 and is now replacing it with the Bill of Rights against their manifesto commitment to update it. We must do our utmost to stop this Bill that makes the government and other public bodies untouchable to become law by campaigning to: Raise awareness of the devastation it brings Protect fundamental collective rights such as ILO Conventions 87 and 98 and those in the 1961 European Social Charter, Freedom of Association including for trade unions, the right to organise effectively, and the right to free collective bargaining. Anooshah Farakish is Unite equality researcher
