Few subjects generate more strongly-held views than that of human rights. Scarcely a week passes without the appearance of headlines supporting or condemning the latest human rights court judgment. Successive governments are routinely accused by their opponents of ignoring or reducing the rights of individuals. High profile court cases involving potential extradition or deportation turn increasingly on whether the human rights of those facing such action will be infringed. The media, politicians, commentators, academics and lawyers queue up to deliver their views, at times in colourful language, on the latest human rights controversy. Small wonder that the first casualty of such polemic is all too often serious analysis of the issues.
Into such waters was this Commission launched. Its members, the Chair apart, were nominated in equal part by the two coalition parties. Those who read this, our report, will form their own judgments of our work and its usefulness. But one thing is certain. As we have set out in our introductory chapter on our approach, we have not been willing as members of the Commission to be stereotyped along pre-ordained lines. We have debated. We have argued. We have put forward our views. But we have also listened to one another. And we have been willing to change our views and set aside our earlier opinions.
Above all we have listened to those we have met, and we have read what those who wrote to us have said. We were determined at the outset that we should seek as wide a range of views from outside the Commission as possible and that we should draw on the wealth of experience that lay outside our doors. In this we believe we have succeeded. Well over a thousand organisations and individuals responded, substantively, to our two public consultations. We have met face to face as Commission members with well over one hundred bodies or individuals who asked to meet us or whom we asked to meet. We have held three major seminars for academics, lawyers, statutory and non-statutory bodies, and practitioners. We have spent time in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to hear at first hand the views in those countries. We have benefitted greatly from the views of our Advisory Panel members from Scotland and Wales. Early on in our life we visited Strasbourg to learn more about the European Court of Human Rights and the challenges it faces. To the best of our knowledge we have not declined to meet with anyone who asked to meet us.
Published : 31st December 2012
Publisher : Members of the Commission on a Bill of Rights [ More From This Publisher ]
Rights : Members of the Commission on a Bill of Rights
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