How does the EUs Human Rights Act work?
It isn’t “the EU’s” Human Rights Act. It is the United Kingdom’s Human Rights Act 1998, which in turn is an act to incorporate into our law the European Convention on Human Rights, which came into existence shortly after WWII, before the EU (or EEC as it was before) came into existence. The ECHR was meant to give to European countries which had suffered totalitarian dictatorships a code to protect individuals from authoritarian regiemes by given individuals rights against the state. Serious criticisms of the Human Rights *Act* (not ECHR) have to do with the way it was written – the way it dealt with incorporation. In particular some feel that HRA unduly involves the courts in political matters. Others point out that the courts powers to deal with breaches of human rights are insufficient – that generally the courts cannot dictate how policy breaches of human rights are correct. e.g. when the Lords ruled that “control orders” placed on foreign nationals suspected of terrorist activity w
