Independent Review of the Human Rights Act: Webinar

The Independent Human Rights Act Review (IHRAR) was launched in December 2020 to examine the framework of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA), how it is operating in practice and whether any change is required. The Review is being conducted by a Panel of eight members, chaired by Sir Peter Gross, a former judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. Following the close of IHRAR’s call for evidence, members of the IHRAR Panel are participating in a series of public events hosted by universities across the United Kingdom. They aim to engage and hear views from a wide range of interested parties to help inform their deliberations.

As part of this series, the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford will jointly host an online event on Wednesday 2 June from 2.30 to 4.30 pm. The event will be of interest to experts in the field, as well as those with an interest in human rights and their application in the UK and its legal jurisdictions. For each part of the discussion, participants will have the opportunity to submit comments and questions when registering. The event will be divided into three main parts. It will begin with academics from the two Universities offering opening reflections on how the HRA has operated since its entry into force in 2000 and its relationship to common law rights; Panel members will be invited to respond to those opening comments. There will then be two periods of discussion, focussing respectively on the two overarching issues identified in the Panel’s terms of reference, namely (i) the relationship between domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and (ii) the HRA’s impact on the relationship between the judiciary, the executive and the legislature. In each of those two sessions, academics will offer opening remarks reflecting on the relevant theme, after which questions submitted in advance will be address by both Panel members and academics.

For the full list of questions being considered by the Panel, please refer to the Review’s Terms of Reference document. The Centre for Public Law at the University of Cambridge and a number of academics from the Faculty of Law at the University of Oxford made submissions to the Review. All submissions to the Review can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/independent-human-rights-act-review#call-for-evidence-responses.

When you register to attend, you will receive a link to a form enabling you to submit questions. A selection of those questions will be put to the IHRAR Panel and to the academics from Oxford and Cambridge who will be participating in the event. There will also be an opportunity to submit questions via the Zoom Q&A chat function during the event itself, but it would be very helpful if questions, as far as possible, could be submitted in advance.

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