Blair's Govt slammed over Human Rights Act

BRITAIN: An influential committee of British parliamentarians slammed Prime Minister Tony Blair's government, accusing ministers of blaming the Human Rights Act for their own failings.

A report by the cross-party Joint Committee on Human Rights said ministers including Blair himself had made "unfounded claims" about the act, which his government introduced six years ago, and had used it as a scapegoat for administrative mistakes.

The act was implemented in 2000, making rights from the European Convention enforceable in British courts.

However it has been blamed in a string of cases where the rights of offenders have been widely judged to have taken precedence over those of society, prompting calls for the law to be amended or even repealed.

"We are extremely concerned that the Human Rights Act has been getting the blame for ministerial or administrative failings when it has nothing to do with these failings," said committee chairman Andrew Dismore.

The committee said it had examined three cases this year where Blair or his ministers had given the impression that the act, or its interpretation, was protecting criminals or terrorism suspects at the expense of the law-abiding public.

In May, a top judge ruled that nine Afghans who hijacked a plane after it left Afghanistan's capital Kabul and ordered the pilot to fly to London could not be deported under human rights laws because their lives would be at risk.

Blair described the decision as an "abuse of common sense".

Another case related to a violent sex attacker who murdered a woman after being freed from jail. The Chief Inspector of Probation said he should never have been released and too much attention had been paid to his human rights. The other related to the failure to deport foreign prisoners at the end of their jail term, a scandal in which about 1,000 ex-convicts were allowed to stay in Britain when they should have been returned to their home country.

"In our view, none of the three cases which sparked controversy ... demonstrates a clear need to consider amending the Human Rights Act," the committee's report said.

The act has come in for much criticism from Blair's Labour party and the opposition Conservatives amid a background of public concern that the judicial system is too soft on serious criminals.

Conservative leader David Cameron said in June the law should be replaced with a British Bill of Rights, saying Blair was to blame for bringing in an act that made the fight against terrorism and crime harder.

London, Tuesday, Reuters.