Bill of Rights to strengthen freedom of speech and curb bogus human rights claims – GOV.UK

The Bill will ensure courts cannot interpret laws in ways that were never intended by Parliament and will empower people to express their views freely.

At the same time, it will help prevent trivial human rights claims from wasting judges time and taxpayer money. A permission stage in court will be introduced requiring people to show they have suffered a significant disadvantage before their claim can go ahead.

The Bill will also reinforce in law the principle that responsibilities to society are as important as personal rights. It will do this by ensuring courts consider a claimants relevant conduct, like a prisoners violent or criminal behaviour, when awarding damages.

The Bill will make clear that the UK Supreme Court is the ultimate judicial decision-maker on human rights issues and that the case law of the European Court of Human Rights does not always need to be followed by UK courts.

Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Dominic Raab said:

The Bill of Rights will strengthen our UK tradition of freedom whilst injecting a healthy dose of common sense into the system.

These reforms will reinforce freedom of speech, enable us to deport more foreign offenders and better protect the public from dangerous criminals.

The Bill of Rights will make it easier to deport foreign criminals by allowing future laws to restrict the circumstances in which their right to family life would trump public safety and the need to remove them.

It will mean that under future immigration laws, to evade removal a foreign criminal would have to prove that a child or dependent would come to overwhelming, unavoidable harm if they were deported.

As a result, any new laws will curb the abuse of the system that has seen those convicted of hurting their own partners and children evade removal by claiming it would breach their right to family life in the UK.

The Bill of Rights will also:

This will be achieved while retaining the UKs fundamental commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights.

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Bill of Rights to strengthen freedom of speech and curb bogus human rights claims - GOV.UK