TORY Justice Secretary Robert Buckland has dismissed claims that the UK will opt out of the European Convention on Human Rights as "for the birds".
However, he said UK Government is examining human rights legislation.
His comments come a day after reports suggested that Boris Johnson is preparing to withdraw from major parts of European human rights laws in a bid to ease migrant deportation cases.
The landmark European Convention on Human Rights was drawn up in the aftermath of the Second World War to protect the civil and political rights of the continent's citizens.
Buckland told Times Radio: "Now the [Human Rights] Act is now 20 years of age, I think it needs to be looked at carefully. We're working on ways on which we can examine that and do it in a mature and sensible way.
"The idea that we're going to leave the Convention is for the birds.
"It was British Conservative lawyers who wrote the damn thing back in 1950. We wrote it because we were leaders of Europe when it came to freedom, we wanted to underline the importance of fundamental rights and freedoms back then and that frankly for me is hugely important.
"It is a badge of honour for this country that we did that. Yes, there have been moments when we have had disagreements and clashes about aspects of its interpretation, but you know there is a wide margin of appreciation that allows member states — Britain, France, other countries — to make their own laws which give us a huge amount of freedom.
"And I do think that rather than focusing on the European Convention we should be focusing on our own domestic laws and working out where perhaps we've gold-plated laws a bit too much in what is often an English Law tradition, rather than criticising the convention itself.
"Let's see what we can do at home to streamline our laws and make them more responsive rather than suggesting that we should withdraw from the convention.
"That would be wholly wrong in my opinion."
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