Equality Bill [HL]

It is well established in human rights case law, international and domestic, that a fair balance must be struck between the rights of the individual, the rights of others and the rights and interests of the community at large. Nothing in any of the international instruments, the Muslim scholar notwithstanding, gets wrong the balance that must be struck and maintained. In authoritarian societies, there is danger of suggesting that the individual owes obligations to the state of a coercive kind as the price for, let us say, freedom of expression. That reactionary position is not accepted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as I understand it. Under Clause 9 (1)(a), the commission is to,"““promote understanding of the importance of human rights””." I am sure that it will be able better to inform the public, in the light of some of the more ignorant attacks on human rights and human rights instruments, that that is indeed a balanced charter of rights, not one with any absolutes. Even the right to life, one of the most fundamental rights, has never been interpreted as absolute in all circumstances. In the examples given by the noble Lord of terrorists—or, I would say, child abusers—the Roma or any other citizen or non-citizen who abuses human rights, it is clear under all the international instruments that an abuse of human rights is not permissible. One is always trying to strike and maintain a fair balance. When the Human Rights Act 1998 was born, ignorant and sometimes malicious attacks were made on it by some sections of the media, especially the tabloid media, suggesting that a right of privacy of a kind that would coerce them would come out of it. Headlines such as, ““Charter for Crooks”” were frequently bandied about by some sections of the media. Our judiciary and, I daresay, the European judiciary have managed to strike and maintain a fair balance between the rights of the individual and the general interests of society. I know of no crazy case, even though the media predicted that the measure would lead to huge litigation and crazy cases. I have been unable to find any decision of an appellate court that has not struck a fair balance. Some would say—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bingham, is among them—that the judiciary may have been more cautious than it might have been in the ways in which it has struck that balance. I do not think that either in European or British case   law or in the texts themselves there is any need to focus on the obligations of individuals in the sense suggested. It is all enshrined in the texts and case law. One of the valuable things about the commission is that it will explain better than I have done the fair balance that must be struck and maintained.