Human rights scrutiny of legislation

A recent report published by the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) has criticised what it considers to be the Government’s failure to allow enough time to fully examine the human rights implications of some of its legislation.

While the JCHR has considered a number of Bills during the current parliamentary session, it has expressed concern over what it perceives as unnecessary uses of fast-track legislation. For example, the JCHR has welcomed the Succession to the Crown Bill in principle but regrets that, although the Bill concerns significant constitutional matters, only a limited opportunity was provided for detailed parliamentary scrutiny,

The JCHR has also welcomed the Government’s acceptance of the recommendation of the House of Lords Constitution Committee that, when it introduces fast-track legislation, it should provide Parliament with information about the efforts that have been made to ensure the amount of time made available for parliamentary scrutiny has been maximised.

However, it recommends that the Government go further and bring forward practical proposals which would ensure that parliamentary committees with a legislative scrutiny function have a proper opportunity to scrutinise fast-track legislation early enough to allow committees’ recommendations fully to inform members of both Houses.

This also applies to the timetabling of other Bills, such as the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill which was fast-tracked through the House of Commons, says the report.

In additon, the JCHR has expressed concern at the late introduction of Government amendments with significant human rights implications, such as happened in connection with the Crime and Courts Bill. It has therefore made the following recommendations:

  • That such Government amendments be accompanied by a human rights memorandum, with due notice so that the Committee has sufficient time to scrutinise and if necessary report on the amendments before the next stage of the Bill’s passage.
  • That the Government ensures that the JCHR is given early sight of, or is notified about, Government amendments to Bills that relate directly either to recommendations it has previously made or to concerns it has expressed in correspondence with ministers. 
  • That all Government departments adopt the best practice of publishing, on introduction of a Bill, a detailed human rights memorandum based upon the ECHR memorandum prepared for the Cabinet’s Parliamentary Business and Legislation Committee. This would enable the Committee’s legislative scrutiny to be more focused, and in some cases might lead to a Bill being cleared from scrutiny earlier than would otherwise be the case.

 

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