Following his long running campaign against the bureaucratic and overly expensive European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Henry Smith MP, has warmly welcomed the Justice Secretary, Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, and his commitment to scrap ECHR, so that individuals such as Abu Qatada cannot be allowed to abuse our justice system again.

Commenting, Henry said:

“I believe that withdrawing from the ECHR – and the significant associated costs – and replacing it with a British Bill of Rights would provide a fairer balance between victim’s and criminals’ rights.  I’m pleased that despite opposition from Liberal Democrats and Labour that the Conservatives in government are putting in place the preparations needed to repatriate powers from the bureaucratic and costly European machinery.  

“It’s difficult to determine how the British public has benefited from its membership of the ECHR, even if some individuals have certainly benefited. IRA terrorists have won a number of cases. Illegal immigrants regularly reach for the Convention to overturn repatriation orders. Prisoners have used it to secure their right to have twigs in their cells for use in pagan rituals and access to fertility treatment. And, of course, lawyers have done tremendously well out of it: whole chambers have sprung up, deriving their livelihoods from the growing corpus of human rights jurisprudence.

“For the country as a whole, however, the balance is surely negative. It is hardly as though we suffer from a massive breakdown of civic freedoms from which only a foreign court can rescue us. The ECHR degrades our democracy without enhancing our liberty.

“Personally, I will continue to push in Parliament for the UK to leave the ECHR (and the associated significant costs) and to replace it with a British Bill of Rights.”

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