SOME of Scotland’s top writers have said they are outraged at Tory plans to repeal the Human Rights Act and other changes to civil liberties.
The writers’ association Scottish PEN canvassed its 300 members – and a number of the most prominent voiced fears the move would roll back civil liberties.
The Scottish Government has confirmed it will refuse to support a change in the legislation, which could lead to a complex legal wrangle over the Scotland Act 1998. The change could restrict access for Scots to the European Court of Human Rights.
The SNP has already had informal discussions with Tory backbenchers who oppose the move.
Alex Neil, the Social Justice Secretary, told MSPs earlier this week: “The Scottish Government’s position is that implementation of the Conservative Government’s proposals would require legislative consent and that this parliament should make clear that such consent will not be given.
“There is currently insufficient detail in what is proposed to predict the impact on Scotland with any certainty.
“However, given the almost unanimous opposition in this parliament and among Scottish MPs at Westminster, it would remain open to exclude Scotland from legislation to repeal the Human Rights Act or for the Scottish Government to pass legislation to give effect to a range of rights in policy areas which are within devolved competence.”
Under devolution legislation, acts of the Scottish Parliament and decisions of Scottish ministers must comply with the European convention and the 1998 Human Rights Act. However, human rights issues are devolved, which creates two different human rights regimes across the UK and could act as a lock on Westminster moves.
Artist and novelist Alasdair Gray said: “The presiding Government of Britain is abandoning the Magna Carta, once widely thought the foundation of both British and USA law.
“It is legalising arrest on suspicion, imprisonment without charge, sometimes without trial, and use of torture.
“These methods were widely condemned when we saw them in former police states: Communist Russia, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany et cetera. Let us work to stop Britain leading Europe into a new darker age.”
Historian Tom Devine said: “I regard this attempt by the incoming Conservative Government to be an entirely unacceptable and completely unwarranted attack on important legal rights protection for individuals.
“The Human Rights Act has proved its importance on numerous occasions. Tory opposition to it is based on little more than right-wing ideology and paranoia about the European connection in general. It reveals their true political colours for all to see.
“The Secretary of State for Scotland, the only Conservative MP north of the Border, has now brazenly stated the repeal of the Act will apply in this country too despite associated provisions in the Scotland Act.
“This autocratic decision, emanating solely from Westminster, now becomes the first test of the post-General Election mettle of the SNP-led Scottish Government. The First Minister has promised to resist repeal in Scotland. It is a battle our Government must win. I very much hope it possesses the inner steel and the political resolution to do so.”
Scottish PEN is the national centre of PEN International, the worldwide association of writers and the oldest human rights organisation in the world, founded in 1927.
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