This article reflects on the legacy of dialogue models of human rights protections in the UK. Recent experience of the UK, which saw a series of threats to human rights protections, illustrates both the strengths and weaknesses of these protections. The experience of the British Bill of Rights Bill, a failed attempt to repeal and replace the Human Rights Act 1998 with a weaker legal protection of rights, demonstrates their relative strength. Commonwealth models of rights protections have a broad appeal and can become culturally entrenched. This makes it politically difficult to remove these protections of rights. However, recent legislation also illustrates their relative weakness. It can be far too easy to remove legal protections of rights from unpopular minority groups, such as asylum seekers and prisoners, through piecemeal legislation. Commonwealth models of rights protections may undermine a universal protection of rights. They may also be unsuited to the protection of unpopular minorities unless applied in a manner which provides greater legal protection of the rights of these groups. It also suggests that dialogue may not provide an effective protection of rights in periods of populism, where it may be easier to achieve a gradual erosion of human rights, removing the rights of those most in need of their protection by the courts.
Alison Young (Fri,) studied this question.