The Human Rights Act is like serious injury insurance, or perhaps an action plan for a global pandemic: you hope you never need it.
The problem is that you might do, and it seems this horrific past year has reminded people in the UK that it’s wise to foresee potential trouble ahead. In new polling we at Amnesty commissioned this week, more than two-thirds (68%) of people thought it was important to have a safety net to hold the government to account when things go wrong, while more than half (53%) believed the coronavirus pandemic had illustrated the importance of human rights protections.
The government’s appalling handling of Covid in care homes, including the horror of the blanket imposition of do-not-resuscitate orders without proper process, has really brought home to people that you never know when you might find yourself or your loved ones in an unexpected position of vulnerability. So much of the past year was seemingly unthinkable until it happened, and it has demonstrated the fragility of our way of life without guarantees and protections when we are failed.
That knowledge is significant, as today (3 March) is the final day of submissions to the government-appointed panel conducting a controversial review of the Human Rights Act. With the events of the pandemic reinforcing the importance of basic human rights protections in people’s minds, it’s extremely worrying that the government is apparently still hell-bent on tinkering with or diluting this vital piece of legislation.
The
Human
Rights
Act is like serious injury insurance, or perhaps an action plan for a global pandemic: you hope you never need it.
The problem is that you might do, and it seems this horrific past year has reminded
people
in the UK that it’s wise to foresee potential trouble ahead. In new polling we at Amnesty commissioned this week, more than two-thirds (68%) of
people
thought
it was
important
to have a safety net to hold the
government
to account when things go
wrong
, while more than half (53%) believed the coronavirus pandemic had illustrated the importance of
human
rights
protections.
The
government
’s appalling handling of
Covid
in care homes, including the horror of the blanket imposition of do-not-resuscitate orders without proper process, has
really
brought home to
people
that you never know when you might find yourself or your
loved
ones in an unexpected position of vulnerability.
So
much of the past year was
seemingly
unthinkable until it happened, and it has demonstrated the fragility of our way of life without guarantees and protections when we
are failed
.
That knowledge is significant, as
today
(3 March) is the final day of submissions to the
government
-appointed panel conducting a controversial review of the
Human
Rights
Act. With the
events
of the pandemic reinforcing the importance of basic
human
rights
protections in
people’s
minds, it’s
extremely
worrying that the
government
is
apparently
still
hell-bent on tinkering with or diluting this vital piece of legislation.