The Conservative Party has pledged to take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). So has Reform UK. The Labour Government wants to limit the application of the ECHR.
In all the messaging about the ECHR, there is rarely any recognition of the enormous benefits the Human Rights Act (the HRA, which is what brings the ECHR into force in the UK) has brought to so many, including service personnel and their families. Many of the people our charity supports were enormously concerned at the various political proposals to repeal the HRA and remain concerned at any proposal that the UK should come out of the Council of Europe (the group of countries signed up to the ECHR).
Told by service personnel or their families that have directly benefited from the Human Rights Act, our short series of Human Rights Stories aims to provide examples of some of these cases. Links to the stories are listed here but can also be accessed individually via our News tab, above. Full authority is given for the blogs to be reproduced.
- Human Rights Stories No.1 – Cpl Anne-Marie Ellement
- Human Rights Stories No. 2: Getting Parliament to engage with the reality of military rape
- Human Rights Stories No. 3: Having my veteran husband’s suicide officially recognised as caused by his military service
- Human Rights Stories No. 4: How the Deepcut families used the Human Rights Act to get access to the State’s evidence and exposed abuse & ill treatment of vulnerable young trainees in the Army
- Human Rights Stories No. 5: Justice and dignity for our LGBT+ service personnel
- Human Rights Stories No. 6: Forcing the Ministry of Defence to accept that they had a duty to protect my son, and exposing their failure to provide soldiers with the right equipment
- Human Rights Stories No.7: Changing the law for disabled veterans
- Human Rights Stories No. 8: Using the Human Rights Act to get my medals – and my dignity – back. https://centreformilitaryjustice.org.uk/using-the-human-rights-act-to-get-my-medals-and-my-dignity-back/
- Human Rights Stories No. 9: Stripping the power to investigate sexual assaults from commanding officers. https://centreformilitaryjustice.org.uk/human-rights-stories-no-9-stripping-the-power-to-investigate-sexual-assault-from-commanding-officers-and-forcing-the-mod-to-introduce-an-independent-complaints-system-for-the-military-police/
- Human Rights Stories No. 10: Getting justice after a failed military prosecution following military sexual assault https://centreformilitaryjustice.org.uk/human-rights-stories-no-10-getting-justice-following-a-failed-sexual-assault-military-prosecution/
- Human Rights Stories No. 11: Ending the blanket ban on Service Personnel’s ability to speak to the media and to Parliament: https://centreformilitaryjustice.org.uk/ministry-of-defence-finally-accepts-that-it-has-been-unlawfully-restricting-the-freedom-of-speech-of-our-service-personnel-for-years/
A response to the last Conservative Government’s Independent Review of the Human Rights Act can be accessed here:
A blog by our Director for the British Institute of Human Rights entitled Why the Human Rights Act Matters to Members of the Armed Forces – published on Human Rights Day 2021 – can be accessed here: