The event brought together members of the IHRAR Panel, academics from the two universities and members of the public. The aim of the event was to explain and explore the impact that the Human Rights Act 1998 has had since its entry into force in the UK over 20 years ago and to engage with the two overarching themes that are identified in the Review’s terms of reference: namely, the relationship between domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights, and the impact of the Act on the relationship between the judiciary, the executive and the legislature.
The IHRAR Panel was represented by its chair, Sir Peter Gross, along with three other members of the Panel: Maria Cahill (Professor of Law at University College Cork), Simon Davis (former President of the Law Society of England and Wales) and Sir Stephen Laws (former First Parliamentary Counsel). The discussion sessions were chaired by Kate O’Regan (Director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and a former Judge of the South African Constitutional Court), who was joined by Oxford colleagues Anne Davies (Professor of Law and Public Policy), Richard Ekins (Professor of Law and Constitutional Government), Timothy Endicott (Vinerian Professor of English Law) and Sandra Fredman (Professor of the Laws of the Commonwealth and the USA). The Cambridge Law Faculty was represented by Mark Elliott (Professor of Public Law), Nick Friedman (Lecturer in Law at St John’s College, Cambridge), Stevie Martin (University Lecturer in Public Law) and Alison Young (Sir David Williams Professor of Public Law).