Weekly Human Rights News: 27-01-23
This week's news includes the new annual statistics from the European Court on Human Rights and a preview from our RITES Committee video series.
Applications have now closed for our awareness-raising workshops!
In March/April 2023, we’ll be hosting free awareness-raising workshops for community groups across the UK. Applications for the programme closed on Friday 27th January, and we’re excited to have received so many great applications from diverse groups and organisations.
Our Human Rights Officers will be in touch with applicants by Friday 3rd February to confirm whether they have been successful.
This programme follows on from our community pilot project in 2020 and 2021, in which we ran free sessions for people accessing or trying to access public services and the organisations supporting them.
Our RITES Committee cost-of-living video series is coming soon!
Our RITES Committee have created a series of five videos examining the link between the Human Rights Act, the Cost-of-Living Crisis and key areas affecting communities. These videos explore fuel poverty; housing; welfare benefits; inequality; and families experiencing domestic abuse. They discuss how the Human Rights Act has been used for advocacy in each area and why its protections are so important. The full videos will be available soon but you can now watch the one-minute trailer below:
We talked to NHS England Practice Leads about human rights in healthcare
On Thursday 26th January, Human Rights Officers Lauren and Phoebe led a workshop with a variety of clinical and managerial staff working in inpatient mental health services for young people. Our interactive workshops help embed a human rights approach across services, benefitting people accessing those services, and staff delivering them, and enabling sustained change and confidence in rights-respecting decision making.
News from Elsewhere
The European Court of Human Rights released its annual statistics
On Thursday 26th January 2023, the European Court of Human Rights published its annual statistics. These show that the court issued 1,163 judgments in 2022 – but just four of them concerned the UK.
In two cases, the Court found violations of human rights. In Coventry v UK, the Court found a breach of the Article 6 right to a fair trial and in Pal v UK, the Court found a breach of the Article 10 right to freedom of expression. You can read summaries of each of these cases in our eNews which will be sent out to members of our mailing list next week. Sign up here.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights released its report on the Rights Removal Bill
On Wednesday 25th January , the Joint Committee on Human Rights released its legislative scrutiny report on the Bill of Rights Bill (better known as the Rights Removal Bill). The report says the UK Government “should not progress the Bill in its current form through Parliament”.
The report includes evidence from BIHR and from our RITES Committee of lived experience experts. You can read a recap of the report on our Twitter feed and read our RITES Committee submission and BIHR submission in full.
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