What has the European Convention on Human Rights ever done for us?

May 5, 2016 5:27 AM

(WARNING: Contains strong language) In this Guardian video, Patrick Stewart, Adrian Scarborough and Sarah Solemani expose the problems in the Conservative plan for a UK bill of rights. This satirical take inspired by the classic Monty Python sketch asks ‘what has the European Convention on Human Rights ever done for us?’ Apart from the right to a fair trial, freedom from slavery, freedom from torture ...

Worth it, if only for the utterly reusable sample or GIF of Patrick Stewart dropping the F-bomb.

posted by Too-Ticky (20 comments total)

For completion's sake, the classic clip itself.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 5:38 AM on May 5, 2016 [5 favorites]

Thank you to the OP. This is precisely the kind of Mefi content that I would have missed in the wider world and actually made my day.

Perfection. Especially the F bomb at the end.
posted by Faintdreams at 5:42 AM on May 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

This was really big with some of my Brit friends on Facebook last week. I don't understand how a pan-European law is an improvement on British common law.
posted by My Dad at 5:47 AM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Excellent!
posted by leslies at 5:49 AM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Touching faith in a written constitution, My Dad, despite the evidence to the contrary. However, any weapon to hand in combating the reach of the powerful is of use, however flawed.
posted by alasdair at 5:58 AM on May 5, 2016

So... is there any substance to the British Home Secretary's complaint about the ECHR besides that it sometimes prevents the UK government from deporting people to be tortured? How is there a reading of this that isn't: "We want our own human rights convention that doesn't have as many rights for people we don't like." I'm honestly asking.
posted by Wretch729 at 6:28 AM on May 5, 2016 [4 favorites]

Because, My Dad, adherence to a common standard means we as a federation of nations can help uphold the rule of law for everyone. If one of the signatories to the ECHR starts abusing its citizens, then others can stand up and say so, and have the power to either compel compliance or put sanctions on the transgressor.

Reality is rarely so simple, and yes there are things that are given up by assuming such responsibility, and dangers too.

I am happy in saying - these are high standards, and necessary standards, and they apply to everyone, and to maintain and strengthen these to the benefit of everyone I agree to be bound by them also. Even if it means the bad are protected just as much as the good, and there will be times when I don't agree with the consequences: the idea that there is no cost to principles may be politically pleasant but it isn't true.

Wretch729: that's about it. Ask yourself which of the ECHR provisions you would be happy to relinquish even if you needed them to protect yourself, and the idea of abandoning it becomes obviously bad. Ask yourself which you'd like to remove in order to punish people you don't like, and you get a different answer - however, you don't get that luxury with human rights. That's pretty much the point.
posted by Devonian at 6:38 AM on May 5, 2016 [6 favorites]

Clever and amusing, but preaching to a choir, assumes Britain needed the ECHR to secure these rights, an assertion that fails the giggle test, and assumes the compliance mechanisms are effective. News from Hungary indicates that is not so.
posted by ocschwar at 8:16 AM on May 5, 2016

I don't understand how a pan-European law is an improvement on British common law.

Because the common law is easily overridden by statute. The pan-European law may not be perfect, or even very good at all in practice, but it's still better than the almost nothing of common law "rights".
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 8:21 AM on May 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

Lovely. Beautiful. Wonderful. (Also agreeing with Faintdreams - I don't know how else I'd have seen this.)
posted by benito.strauss at 8:36 AM on May 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

I don't understand how a pan-European law is an improvement on British common law.

Yeah! It's not like the Charter was an improvement on common law here, either!

Oh, wait
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:03 AM on May 5, 2016

If we're being glib, that enumeration sounds more like what the UK has done for European rights than what the European Convention on Human Rights has done for the UK.
posted by Svejk at 2:41 PM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

If we're being glib, that enumeration sounds more like what the UK has done for European rights than what the European Convention on Human Rights has done for the UK.

Yes, it seems like a bit of a tautology.
posted by My Dad at 3:23 PM on May 5, 2016

Feckless, you appear to agree with Andrew Coyne of all people (although he did vote for Tom Mulcair's party in 2015).

In the case of Britain however do you really want (European) constitutional supremacy to trump (local, British) parliamentary supremacy? I suppose it depends on how long the UK's current political dysfunction continues, I suppose.
posted by My Dad at 5:00 PM on May 5, 2016

Yes. I want governments to have a great deal of difficulty passing legislation that violates human rights. I want protection of those rights to cover as much of the globe as possible.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:19 PM on May 5, 2016

Yes, quite. In the absence of a written constitution than transcends temporary and transient government whims, the ECHR gives us a way to say to governments "this far and no further".

That's deeply important when you have a government actively trying to legislate against human rights. But either way, whether you support one side or the other, you need a backstop against which it's *really* hard to move. The US has a constitution, which provides this. The UK doesn't, so I support the ECHR. Who gives a shit if it's European over British? The Tories are British, and they're awful. They *actively*trying*to*reduce*human*rights* ffs.
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 9:13 PM on May 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

Yes. I want governments to have a great deal of difficulty passing legislation that violates human rights.

Yes but in this case Patrick Stewart et al are just using ECHR as an example (and it's a tautology anyway).

I don't disagree with the important role a Charter or Constitution plays in acting as check against legislative power, btw.
posted by My Dad at 1:34 AM on May 6, 2016

Then why are you wibbling on about how the ECHR is bad?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:54 AM on May 6, 2016

Again disclaimer I'm not a UK citizen or an expert on British common law but isn't the contention of the tory minister who wants to ditch it that the ECHR guarantees rights that British common law does not? Otherwise how would ditching it make the security policy she wants to enact easier?
posted by Wretch729 at 8:34 AM on May 6, 2016

I don't understand how a pan-European law is an improvement on British common law.

And

I don't disagree with the important role a Charter or Constitution plays in acting as check against legislative power, btw.

You do understand that British law has no such check against legislative power, except those imposed by its treaty commitments? We do not have a constitutionally right to free speech, or to privacy, or to walk in the street. The common law does not prevail against the will of Parliament in any circumstance. The law is what Parliament says the law is.

I know you framed your original comment as a lack of understanding, but that very lack of understanding (I note, e.g. that you make reference to "British common law" which simply does not exist, there being no such legal jurisdiction as Britain) implies that you don't know much at all about English, Scots, Northern Irish or, indeed, British, law. Which isn't a sin in itself, there's loads I don't know about pretty much everything, but it's probably not the best place to plunge into a thread from.
posted by howfar at 2:07 PM on May 6, 2016 [6 favorites]