Human Rights Act

We hear an awful lot of rubbish about human rights. The Government Department for Constitutional Affairs in its frequently asked questions web page, asks “isn’t this just a chancer’s charter?” before answering that it is not. But more of that later.

The Human Rights Act 1998 brought the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights into our own law. The Convention sets out 13 fundamental rights that all the Countries who signed the Convention agreed to enforce. They are basic rights that no one could sensibly disagree with. For example; Article 2 is headed Right to life, Article 3 Prohibition on torture, Article 4 Prohibition on slavery and forced labour, Article 6 Right to a fair trial, Article 8 Right to respect for family and private life, Article 10 Freedom of expression.

The Human Rights Act makes it unlawful for a public authority to violate any of the Convention Rights, and all of our laws must be interpreted as far as possible in a way which does not conflict with those rights. Public authorities are bodies such as local authorities; the police, the prison service, courts and tribunals.

The idea, and it is a good one, is that we should all be clearer about basic values and standards that we share.

The problem from this simple employment lawyer’s perspective is that a lot of court time is taken up by chancers trying to enforce what they see as their human rights, forgetting that in any civilised society not only do we all have rights but we also have responsibilities.

Let me give you an example. Mr X worked for a charity. His job was to work with young offenders and those at risk of offending, aged between 16 and 25.

He was caught by a police officer engaging in sexual activity with a man he did not know in the public toilet of a transport cafe. He was cautioned by the police for committing an act of gross indecency which is a criminal offence, contrary to the Sexual Offences Act.

Mr X didn’t tell his employers but some months later they found out about it. He was dismissed for gross misconduct on the basis that he had committed a criminal offence that he deliberately did not disclose to his employers, and that his conduct, particularly given their charitable work, could bring them into serious disrepute.

Mr X claimed unfair dismissal essentially on the basis that there had been a breach by his employers of his right to a private life which is Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case went from the Employment Tribunal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal and finally to the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal is the second highest Court in the land. Even I shudder at the thought of the costs involved.

The outcome at each stage was that Mr X lost. The Court of Appeal held that the conduct did not take place in his private life. The caution he received from the police should have been disclosed to his employers because it was relevant to his employment. The fact that Mr X wished to keep the matter private did not make it part of his private life. The Court went on to say that what is private life depends on all the circumstances such as whether the conduct is in private premises, and if not, whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy for conduct of that kind.

Human rights are important to all of us, but sometimes in the pursuit of our rights common sense goes out of the window.

Published 27/09/2006.