Human rights

Hi Simranmandhan, and a Happy New Year to you 🙂

This is an interesting question that is made even more interesting following Britain’s exit from the European Community.

However, I’m going to suggest to you that you could have got this correct (at least, you could have eliminated 50% of the options) by a careful consideration of the precise wording on those options!

Look at #2 and, in particular, ‘may strike out any legislation’. That is very heavy-handed and most unlike the wording of statutes. Statutes tend to lay out the general intention of a proviso but also tend to include exceptions to those generalities. Allowing the Courts to strike out ANY legislation that is contrary to Human Rights should intuitively have struck you as too much.

Same comment applies to option #3 – ‘must always interpret legislation’. It’s that ‘ALWAYS’ that hits me as being too prescriptive. There has to be a degree of flexibility allowing Court discretion when interpreting statute.

So #2 and #3 should be, in my mind, considered to be incorrect statements.

#4 – ‘the Courts need not consider … ‘ – this is a bit of an anomaly. Even following Brexit, the Brits have accepted that the European Court of Human Rights (and the European Convention on Human Rights) is so pertinent, relevant and important that British Courts DO consider the provisions and decisions of the Europeans when it comes to the subject of Human Rights.

And that leaves us with just option #1 – the requirement of a statement of compatibility

Does all that make sense?