Government hints at withdrawal from ECHR
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick has today (9 August) hinted that the government would be prepared to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)* to tackle the small boats problem.
Law Society of England and Wales President Lubna Shuja said: “If the government wants to address problems in the asylum system, it can do so by bringing down the case backlogs and addressing the issues with the Illegal Migration Act.
“These will not be tackled by leaving an extremely successful international agreement designed to protect individual rights and support political stability.
"Leaving the ECHR would mean the UK would sit as an outlier in Europe, alongside only Russia and Belarus who are already outside of the Convention.
“This would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, when the government already has a perfectly good nutcracker it can use.”
Notes to editors
* The European Convention of Human Rights is an international treaty between the 46 Council of Europe member states (of which the UK is one. The UK was one of the first to ratify in 1951). Find out more. The UK is also part of the Council of Europe, which promotes democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
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