Human rights legislation, does it just apply to official organisations?

I know the Government, Police etc have to comply with the Human Rights Act but is it possible for an individual person who is not a member of any official organisation to be taken to Court for breaching the Human Rights Act?Human rights legislation, does it just apply to official organisations?No it's not possible. The human rights act applies to governments and organisations, not individuals.Human rights legislation, does it just apply to official organisations?
The Human Rights Act 1998 is essentially the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights, but with a couple of minor alterations, otherwise it is almost the Convention verbatim.



The Convention, and therefore the Act, sets out the rights and responsibilities of individuals, and compels signatory states to comply with them. The Articles of the Convention, and the Act, are largely concerned with matters which are in the sphere of control of the state, such as fair judicial process, explanation of arrest, right to own property, right to education, right to marry, etc.



For the full text of the Act see the link below. There is also a link for the Convention to compare the two (the Act is essentially the Convention written into UK law to prevent the need to prosecute the UK in the European Court of Human Rights).



Note that the European Court of Human Rights is NOT part of the EU (the European Court of Justice is part of the EU). The UK signed the Convention over 20 years before joining the EU, and many non-EU states are signed to the Convention.



The rights in the Act are:

Right to life - all human lives protected in law, save for the carrying out of judicial executions, which are NOT prohibited in the conventions (though most signatories including the UK have ended capital punishments).

Prohibition of torture or inhuman or degrading punishments - states cannot use corporal punishments or "penal servitude" or forced labour.

Prohibition of slavery and forced labour, excluding military work or work undertaken as part of a criminal sentence.

Right to liberty and security (other than lawful detention by order of a court)

Fair trial - legal process to be explained in a language a suspect understands, process not to be unduly fast or slow, and opportunity for defendant to cross examine witnesses. Defendant to be entitled to legal representation.

No punishment without law - or "laws cannot be retrospective" - if an act was not unlawful at the tit was committed, it was not a crime. If sentences for crimes are increased, a defendant can only get a sentence he could have got at the time of the offence.

Freedom of thought, conscience and religion

Freedom of assembly

Right to marry (except if marriage would contravene legally defined prohibited degrees of relationship, ie incestuous).

Political activities of aliens - the conventions permits states to restrict political activities of non-nationals (ie barring them from funding local political parties in the UK).

Protection of property - the state can't take it from you (but it can buy it).

Right to education

Right to free elections

Amendments - 6th protocol - abolition of death penalty, no person to be sentenced to death (may be derrogated in wartime).



The idea of the Act is to stop the UK being prosecuted in the ECtHR, by making sure all UK laws are interpreted in a way which complies with the Conventions. In order to prosecute the UK in the Court, all legal avenues in the UK must have been exhausted, which from the persepective of England means a case must have reached the Supreme Court (formerly the House of Lords) without satisfactory resolution. If the European Court of Human Rights is called upon to make a judgment, its decision is binding on the member state, and all other signatory states. The country in breach is expected to change its national law to comply with the ruling, and all other states are expected to comply with it.



You will notice everything in the Convention and therefore the Act, is completely sensible. Yet the Tories want to scrap the Act. Why is unclear, since they are not suggesting we withdraw from the Convention or the Council of Europe (don't confuse it with the EU they are not connected). The Act saves the UK money.Human rights legislation, does it just apply to official organisations?yes, and 'human rights' is a misnomer. It's just about protecting and favoring only curtain government recognized groups.Human rights legislation, does it just apply to official organisations?
Definite no. The HRA applies only to the activities of the government and its public bodies.Human rights legislation, does it just apply to official organisations?yes