The new chair of the Bar Council (representing barristers) challenged the government over the 'stripping away' of people's rights in the Criminal Justice Bill, and questioned the Home Secretary's claim that it is his democratic imperative to curb basic freedoms.
Source: Speech by Matthias Kelly QC, 17.12.02, Bar Council (020 7242 0082)
Links: Text of speech | Press release
Date: 2002-Dec
Two leading charities urged the withdrawal of proposals in the Criminal Justice Bill allowing for compulsory drug testing and treatment of children, arguing that they would infringe a child's right to liberty and protection from inhuman and degrading treatment.
Source: Press release 17.12.02, Children s Society (020 7841 4415) and DrugScope
Links: Press release
Date: 2002-Dec
The Lord Chancellor said that predictions that the judiciary would be politicised by the Human Rights Act have been proved wrong, and that judges have succeeded in striking a balance between 'intense judicial scrutiny and reasonable deference to elected decision-makers'.
Source: Lord Irvine (Lord Chancellor), The Human Rights Act Two Years On: An Analysis, Inaugural Irvine Human Rights Lecture, Lord Chancellor's Department (020 7210 8500)
Links: Text of lecture | Press release
Date: 2002-Nov
The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales defended the role of the judiciary in upholding the basic human rights of minority groups, even if that results in a temporary loss of the judiciary's own popularity.
Source: Lord Woolf, Human Rights: Have the Public Benefited?, Thank-Offering to Britain Fund Lecture, British Academy (020 7969 5200)
Links: Lecture (pdf)
Date: 2002-Oct
Campaigners said that serious human rights violations occurred as a consequence of the United Kingdom authorities' response to the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States of America. The report denounced the treatment and conditions of detention of those detained in the aftermath of the attacks.
Source: Rights Denied: The UK's Response to 11 September 2001, EUR 45/016/2002, Amnesty International (020 7814 6200)
Links: Report (pdf) | Press release
Date: 2002-Sep
A paper described how four safeguards of liberty - trial by jury, the double jeopardy rule, the presumption of innocence, and 'habeas corpus' - are being eroded.
Source: Peter Lilley, Taking Liberties, Adam Smith Institute (020 7222 4995)
Links: Paper (pdf)
Date: 2002-Jul
An official commission proposed that it should be a criminal offence to test someone s DNA or access their genetic information without their knowledge or consent for non-medical purposes, except as allowed by law.
Source: Inside Information - Balancing Interests in the Use of Personal Genetic Data, Human Genetics Commission (020 7972 1518)
Links: Summary (pdf) | Report
See also: Journal of Social Policy Volume 31/2, Digest 122 (paragraph 2.7)
Date: 2002-Jun
The government decided to withdraw proposals to allow departments to gain access to the records of telephone and e-mail usage by individuals, following protests by civil liberties groups.
Source: The Guardian, 11.6.02 and 19.6.02
Links: Guardian report (11.6.02) | Guardian report (19.6.02)
Date: 2002-Jun