Human Rights Act 1998 - Historical Context

Historical Context

The Convention was drafted by the Council of Europe after World War II. Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe was the Chair of the Committee on Legal and Administrative Questions of the Council's Consultative Assembly from 1949 to 1952, and oversaw the drafting of the European Convention on Human Rights. It was designed to incorporate a traditional civil liberties approach to securing "effective political democracy", from the strong traditions of freedom and liberty in the United Kingdom. As a founding member of the Council of Europe, the UK acceded to the European Convention on Human Rights in March 1951. However it was not until Harold Wilson's government in the 1960s that British citizens were able to bring claims in the European Court of Human Rights. Over the 1980s, it was widely perceived that the executive misused its power and that, with movements like Charter 88 (which invoked the 300th anniversary of the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and the Bill of Rights 1689) a British Bill of Rights was needed to secure a human rights culture at home.

The Labour government incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into law through the Human Rights Act 1998. The 1997 white paper "Rights Brought Home" stated:

It takes on average five years to get an action into the European Court of Human Rights once all domestic remedies have been exhausted; and it costs an average of £30,000. Bringing these rights home will mean that the British people will be able to argue for their rights in the British courts – without this inordinate delay and cost.