Lord Cameron: European Court of Human Rights plants seeds of own destruction by overreaching
Lord Cameron has warned the European Court of Human Rights that it is “planting the seeds of its own destruction” by “overreaching”.
In some of his most outspoken comments about the court, the Foreign Secretary said it had overreached itself last week in its ruling that Governments have a duty to protect people from climate change.
However, he maintained that the Government had no plans to leave the court or the Council of Europe amid a growing clamour from Tory MPs for such a move.
Asked about the UK’s future relations with the Strasbourg court in the Lords, Lord Cameron said: “There are occasions, in my view, when this court overreaches itself and we saw one last week with respect to climate change, where it took a judgment against Switzerland.
“And I think it’s dangerous when these courts overreach themselves, because ultimately we’re going to solve climate change through political will, through legislation in this House and the Commons, by the actions we take as politicians, by the arguments we put to the electorate – and so I do think there’s a danger of overreach.”
He added: “These organisations are important, they do good work, but if they overreach they plant the seeds of their own destruction.”
No plans to leave Convention
It echoes comments by Rishi Sunak at the weekend when he hit out at the “complete overreach” of the “illegitimate” ruling by the Strasbourg court that imposed a duty on Governments to achieve net zero.
In the first judgment of its kind, the court ruled that the human rights of a group of elderly Swiss women had been violated by the failure of their government to act quickly enough to tackle climate change. The ruling also applies to the UK.
Earlier this month, Mr Sunak raised the possibility of the UK leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if the Strasbourg court continued to block his delayed plans to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda. He said controlling immigration is “more important” than membership of the convention.
However, Lord Cameron said the Government has no plans to leave the ECHR or the Council of Europe, because it “sees no inconsistency between its policies” and membership.
The former prime minister recalled a Strasbourg court ruling during his premiership proposing that prisoners should be given the right to vote.
He said he believed Parliament should decide on such issues, and that repeated demands to give them the vote led to “moments of extreme frustration”.
Braverman’s call to leave ECHR
In the past two days, Liz Truss, the former prime minister, and Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, have called for the UK to quit the ECHR.
On Tuesday Ms Braverman urged Rishi Sunak to quit the ECHR now – or risk losing the chance to do so for a decade.
She told the National Conservatism conference in Brussels that leaving the ECHR was not just the “right and necessary” thing to do but also the “politically expedient” option for the Government.
She said it would put pressure on Labour who would have to campaign on a platform of reversing the process instead of “taking back control”.
It would also show the Conservative Party to be “principled” as delaying it to make such a commitment in a manifesto or later would appear an act of “desperation,” she said.
Any attempt to include a plan for ECHR withdrawal in a losing Conservative party manifesto would “likely set the cause back a generation,” she warned.