{"id":867,"date":"2009-07-21T00:07:08","date_gmt":"2009-07-21T00:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/2009\/07\/21\/do-peers-have-human-rights\/"},"modified":"2009-07-21T00:07:08","modified_gmt":"2009-07-21T00:07:08","slug":"do-peers-have-human-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/2009\/07\/21\/do-peers-have-human-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Peers have Human Rights?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Government\u2019s Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill<\/a>, published yesterday, will allow the House of Lords to suspend or expel a peer if it thinks that \u201cthe House is in disrepute because of conduct of the person\u201d. This seems a strange criterion. <\/p>\n

If a peer fiddles his expenses, why does that bring the House into disrepute? It\u2019s the peer who has behaved disreputably, not the House. <\/p>\n

Fortunately, there\u2019s a much more straightforward provision covering peers convicted of criminal offences: once you have been sentenced to a year or more in prison \u2013 anywhere in the world \u2013 you\u2019re out. <\/p>\n

The good news for Lord Black of Crossharbour, currently serving a rather longer sentence in the US for fraud, is that this clause will apply only to offences committed after the Act comes into force.<\/p>\n

No doubt this was to ensure compliance with the little-noticed Article 7 of the Human Rights Convention, which bans any increase in punishment after an offence has been committed. <\/p>\n

Indeed, Jack Straw has made the standard declaration that, in his view, the Bill is compatible with human rights. But his officials seem far from confident. <\/p>\n

They are particularly worried by the suspension or expulsion provisions mentioned above. Explanatory notes<\/a> published with the Bill say it might be argued that these provisions engage Article 6 of the convention.<\/p>\n

In that event, peers would be entitled to a fair hearing before an independent tribunal. The best the Government can say on this is that it considers \u201cthe contrary view is the better one\u201d.<\/p>\n

But even if membership of the Lords is a \u201ccivil right\u201d and Article 6 is engaged, the Government says there are \u201cgood arguments that the proposals would be compatible with that Convention right\u201d \u2013 in other words, that peers would have a fair hearing before being kicked out. <\/p>\n

It refers to various procedural safeguards, including \u201ca right of appeal to the Committee of Privileges, a body which includes four Lords of Appeal\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the Lords of Appeal \u2013 the law lords \u2013 will not be allowed to sit on any Lords committee from October 1, when section 137(3)(b) of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005<\/a> comes into force. Not quite such a safeguard, then.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, I was sorry to see that clause 55 of the Bill would give a single minister the power to overturn an Act of Parliament if he or she considers that this would be \u201cappropriate in consequence of any provision\u201d in the Bill. Is this really necessary? The minister could even overturn legislation passed later in the same session of Parliament. <\/p>\n

Talking of which, when is this Bill likely to become law? There\u2019s not enough time before the end of this session.<\/p>\n

The answer, according to the Ministry of Justice, is that this is a \u201ccarry-over\u201d Bill and will have its second reading in the next Parliamentary session.<\/p>\n

Watch this space.<\/p>\n

<\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n


\n\"\"The divisions of the human league<\/a>
\n
\n\"DefaultDon\u2019t moan about legal overreach\u2014worry about our rights<\/a>
\n
\n\"\"Majority rule; minority rights<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Government’s Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, published yesterday, will allow the House of Lords to suspend or expel a peer if it thinks that “the House is in disrepute because of conduct of the person”. This seems a strange criterion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}