Labor fears Dominic Raab will target bill of rights in new office of justice | human rights law

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Labor and prominent legal figures have raised concerns about the appointment of Dominic Raab as Minister of Justice in order to enact sweeping changes to human rights law.

Labor has released a video of the former foreign minister saying he does not support the law, which it is now expected to implement or reform. In letters to ministers earlier this year, Raab urged the government to be more ambitious in its pursuit of human rights law reform and judicial reviews.

The government has launched the independent review of human rights law, which is expected to report later this year, which is reviewing the duty of British courts to “take account” of rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, and their ability to declare British laws “inconsistent”. with human rights.

Footage of Raab revealed by the shadow attorney general’s office, David Lammy, since 2009 shows Raab, who was then an MP, looking into the camera and saying, “I don’t support human rights law and I don’t believe in economic and social rights.”

Dominic Raab: I do not support human rights law and do not believe in economic and social rights – video

In a book called The Assault on Liberty: What Went Wrong with Rights, written by Rapp that same year, he argued that the Human Rights Act – introduced by Labor in 1998 – led to a large number of new lawsuits in the courts.

“The spread of rights has become contagious and, since the Human Rights Act, has opened the door to broad new categories of claims, which can be judicially enforced against the government through the courts,” he wrote.

Raab claimed that the law allowed European courts to trump UK law, while the boundaries between Parliament, the judiciary and the executive were blurred.

He said, “The enactment of human rights law was in itself a catalyst for the formulation of claims by lawyers and judicial inference by the courts, using human rights arguments that he could not have dared before.”

On Wednesday, Raab was removed from the position of foreign minister and accepted the positions of justice minister, deputy prime minister and finance minister, and is now also responsible for the independence of the judiciary. The former attorney general, Robert Buckland, is back in the back seats.

Informed sources said Raab commented earlier this year on government proposals for potential changes to the human rights law and judicial review. After receiving a “writing tour” – a note sent to cabinet ministers about the proposed policy – from Buckland’s office, a source said Raab suggested ministers could be “more ambitious”.

Legal blogger David Allen Green said Rapp was not a popular choice for the position among lawyers due to his preoccupation with the act. “One would not be surprised that one of the conditions that Raab made for accepting the position of chancellor was that he got another crack in repealing the Human Rights Act,” he said.

There has been concern about the high turnover in the lord’s role over what has been a turbulent period for the justice system, with huge spending cuts. Derek Sweeting QC, President of the Bar Council, said: “While we welcome the eighth justice minister in the past 10 years to play this vital role, the need for a consistent and strong voice in government for our judicial system could not be greater.”

Sir Bob Neal, the Conservative chair of the Justice Select Committee, said he would work with Raab but lamented the way he sacked Boris Johnson in Buckland to “make way”.

“The position of Lord Chancellor is crucial. It is not the kind of granule that the Prime Minister should hand over,” he said.

“The new Secretary of State will carefully consider the findings of the independent review when the committee reports later this year,” a Justice Department spokesperson said.

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