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The current Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, gave a speech this week which criticised proposals from the Convervatives to abolish the Human Rights Act 1998. This chimed with the views of his predecessor, Sir Ken Macdonald, featured in an articled which appeared on UKSB Blog at the beginning of this month.
Mr Starmer spoke in robust terms saying that the abolition plans were based on a “fundamentally flawed analysis” and that was a “lie” to describe the legislation as a “criminals’ charter”.
This drew a strong response from Conservative MP David Davies (not the David Davies but mentioned before on this blog, commenting on an interview by Lord Phillips) who said
“We should tear up the Human Rights Act and replace it with something that protects law abiding citizens from violent criminals. And we should tear up his [Starmer’s] contract as well.”
Joshua Rozenberg’s views on the speech are here. The speech has also produced a lively response in the letters page in today’s Daily Telegraph.
Jesse Norman and Peter Oborne have recently produced a Conservative defence of the Human Rights Act, entitled “Churchill’s Legacy: The Conservative Case for the Human Rights Act”, available here on Liberty’s webiste.
