The effect of human rights act 1998 on parliament sovereignty

Thus, parties seeking remedy for a violation of a Convention right need not to go to the European Courts of Human Rights located in Strasbourg. They can as well file their cases at the United Kingdom court. The Act prohibits any public entity to act in a manner which is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights unless the specifications of any other primary law provide no other option. The Act also requires the judiciary and tribunals to make rulings and judgments that are consistent with the European Convention on Human Rights. These provisions are provided in the Article 2, 3 and 4 which are regarded as a threat to parliament supremacy. One of the pillars of Dicey’s theory is that no parliament shall bind its successors.

This means that a parliamentary legislation is not made to last permanently, it can be amended or repealed according to the needs of the society. However, Decey’s model provides that an Act of parliament can only be amended or repealed by Parliament and not even courts have the powers to examine the constitutionality of a parliamentary law. The Human Rights Act 1998 was commenced in October 2000 and marked the beginning of the reconstruction of the United Kingdom’s political constitution as it attempts to transfer political authority from Parliament and executive to the judiciary (Tushnet 265). Thus, Human Rights Act 1998 is regarded as a significant document which seeks to redistribute political power in the nation (Barnett). The Act brought to an end the circumstance where a complainant had to travel to Strasbourg to enforce their Convention rights, as an accuser’s case could now be adjudicated British courts.

The Act expanded various and rights and freedoms protected by the European Convention on Human Rights. UK, a key founding member of the European Union has obligations to ratify and domesticate continental conventions. Section 4 of the Human Rights Act 1998 enables the Act to operate in the United Kingdom just like other Parliamentary legislations. Section 4 allows the courts to determine incompatibility of any Act of Parliament in relation to the Section 3 of the HRA. The judge said that courts should ensure that all judicial pronouncements should be consistent with the Convention since the requirements spelled out in the conversion are uniform across all states parties to it. The HRA was also applied in the case in R (Al-Skeini) v Secretary State for Defence (SSD) (Kavanagh 25).

In this case, the 5 complaints were related to the slain Iraqi nationals murdered in Iraq. The courts ruled that their claims would be dismissed since they were out of Article 1’s specified jurisdiction under the tittle ‘extra-territorial doctrine of the effective control of an area exception. ’ The courts ruled that the case was not within the scope of the Human Rights Act as the events under scrutiny were clearly not in the background of European Convention on Human Rights and Strasbourg jurisprudence. In R v Offen, the courts attempted to interpret Crime (Sentences) Act 1997, in accordance to the Section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (Davies 10). Section 2 of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 would not contravene European Convention on Human Rights if it is applied together with Section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998.

Section 2 of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 provides that an offender should not be sentenced to life imprisonment on first offence if they do not pose serious threat to the public. The wording of this Act suggests that an offender should be subjected to life imprisonment even if the second offence is not related to the first one. This means that the application of this Act would be in breach of the Convention rights. Bellinger had sought to marry a fellow man who had undergone gender transformation. By this time, the law only recognized the principle in Corbett v Corbett which fixed gender at birth. The UK parliament had to enact Gender Recognition Act 2004 to realign itself with the European Conventions on Human Rights.