UK Human Rights Act and ECHR Explained: Right to Life, Law and Planning

Seventy-five years after Britain helped write the post-war rules that keep tyranny out, voices within the Conservatives and Reform UK are now toying with watering down or walking away from the Human Rights Act and our ECHR commitments. That wouldn’t be tidy “legal reform”; it would put your right to life and fifteen other basic protections in play — from the right to a fair trial that keeps verdicts honest, to the rights that shape our environment, housing and planning decisions (who keeps a roof over their head, how new homes are approved), to the boundaries of lawful expression (what we’re permitted to say in print, online, or on the streets without crossing into crime). Strip away those guard-rails and deportations get sloppier and riskier, housing and planning turn into a free-for-all, the line between protected speech and unlawful abuse blurs, and ordinary people lose remedies when power gets it wrong — from the Isles of Scilly to Shetland.

Before letting that slide, here’s what’s really at stake, how the system actually works in Britain, what the numbers show about UK cases in Strasbourg, and how these rights already shape everyday decisions — from the Isles of Scilly to Shetland.

What are we actually talking about? (Plain English)

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is a post-war treaty the UK helped write to stop governments sliding into tyranny again. Think of it as a basic safety standard for how the state treats people.

The Human Rights Act (HRA) “brings those rights home.” If a public body (police, council, prison, hospital, school) breaches your rights, you go to a UK judge first — in the courts you already know. Only if you’ve used the proper UK routes and still have no remedy can you try the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg. That “UK first” design is the whole point of the HRA.

This “home first, Strasbourg last” approach is written into the Convention’s rules. The ECtHR will only look at a case once domestic remedies have been exhausted — in other words, after you’ve taken every effective UK route you reasonably can.

Bottom line: British judges first; Strasbourg is a fail-safe, not a first stop. 

How hard is it to get a case heard in Strasbourg

Very. Most applications never get past the starting gate because they don’t meet the strict admissibility rules — often because the person hasn’t used the proper UK routes first (that “exhaustion” rule), or because the claim simply doesn’t reach the Convention threshold. In 2023, the Court declared tens of thousands of applications inadmissible or struck them out as part of its filtering process; this is a normal, designed-in filter to keep the Court focused on exceptional cases.

For the UK specifically, the figures are small. In 2024, the Court dealt with 332 UK applications; 328 were thrown out as inadmissible or struck out. Only three judgments were delivered, and just one found a violation. That’s exactly what you’d expect in a system where UK courts do the heavy lifting.

The UK also has a very low application rate per head. Official statistics show 3.0 applications per million people in 2023, the lowest among member states — another clue that cases are usually sorted properly at home.

Plain-English takeaway: Strasbourg is the back-stop, used rarely, and most UK-related applications are filtered out long before any full hearing.

Does the UK “constantly lose” in Strasbourg

No. When people say “lose,” they usually mean a judgment finding at least one violation. The UK’s numbers are modest and have been low for years. Government-compiled tables (drawing on ECtHR data) show single-digit violation judgments in most recent years, and a small number of total judgments. In 2024, for example, there were three UK judgments, one with a violation. 

For 2025 so far, one clear example is Ezeoke v United Kingdom (25 Feb 2025): the Court found a breach of the Article 6 “reasonable time” requirement (because the criminal case dragged on too long through multiple trials), but no overall unfairness of the trial itself. That is exactly how the safety-net should work: identify a procedural failing, but not re-try the whole case. 

Takeaway: This is not a story of “foreign judges constantly overruling Britain.” It’s a system where most UK cases are handled here, and a handful each year result in Strasbourg saying “fix this bit.”

Why the rights to life matters to everyone (not just migrants)

The right to life (Article 2) is the backbone. Without it, every other freedom is fragile. In practice, Article 2:

• Stops the state killing you arbitrarily. It’s the clearest legal brake on lethal force and on any drift back toward capital punishment.

• Forces proper investigations when people die in state custody or after police action (so families get answers and institutions learn lessons) Just think Hillsborough 96, Birmingham 6, and many many more

• Prevents “danger by proxy.” You can’t deport someone to a place where they face execution or a real risk of being killed and pretend that isn’t your responsibility.

Remove this to “make deportations easier,” and you don’t just hurt people seeking asylum. You weaken protections for patients in hospitals, kids in care, people with dementia, protesters, soldiers, and detainees — anyone who might meet the sharpest edge of state power. (That’s also why Strasbourg has, in other UK cases, scrutinised state power in security or detention contexts.)

What about all the other rights?

Here’s the short version of the core protections the Convention guarantees (made enforceable in UK courts by the HRA): life; no torture; no slavery; liberty; fair trial; no punishment without law; private and family life; thought, conscience, religion; expression; assembly and association; marry; no discrimination (in enjoying Convention rights); property; education; free elections; no death penalty. These aren’t “nice-to-haves.” They’re the minimum standards that keep a free society free — and that protect you even when you’re unpopular or powerless. (UK reports to Parliament regularly track and implement judgments to keep these standards real.) 

Human Rights and planning: What every committee weighs, from Scilly to Shetland

Every time a local planning committee sits down — whether it’s a single wind turbine, a block of flats, a bypass or a town-centre redevelopment — human rights are in scope. Councils are public authorities. They must make decisions compatibly with Convention rights and be able to show how they’ve balanced them. That’s not exotic; it’s everyday planning law in action. 

Here’s how it plays out in practice (in plain English):

• Fair process (Article 6). Planning committees aren’t courts — but the planning system as a whole provides the “fair hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal” the law requires. The House of Lords confirmed this in Alconbury: ministers and committees can take planning decisions; fairness is secured by the overall design — public reports and hearings, independent inspectors on appeal, and judicial review to check legality. In short, the system meets the fair-hearing standard.

• Home and family life (Article 8). Decisions that affect where people live must be proportionate. Courts have said this repeatedly in Gypsy and Traveller cases: moving people on from where they live can breach Article 8 unless there’s somewhere else suitable to go. That doesn’t give anyone a free pass to ignore planning law; it means councils must show a fair balance between the public interest (e.g., protecting the countryside) and the impact on people’s homes and families.

• Property (A1P1). Developers and landowners have a right to peaceful enjoyment of their property, but that right sits alongside the state’s power to control land use in the general interest. That’s why conditions, design changes and mitigation (noise limits, hours of operation, traffic management) are normal: they tailor permissions so interference with neighbours is proportionate. 

• Objectors and neighbours. Can you stop a next-door scheme just by invoking Article 8? Usually not. Courts have been “distinctly unhappy” with using Article 8 prospectively to block neighbouring development. You need real evidence of a serious interference, not just dislike of change — and even then, the planning balance may still favour the scheme if impacts are controlled. The Heathrow night-flights litigation (Hatton) shows the point: initial success for objectors was overturned by the Grand Chamber after the economic justification was weighed in. The lesson is the same — balance and proportionality rule the day.

What does that mean for committees, from the Isles of Scilly to Shetland? Officer reports and committee debates should show their working: who’s affected, which rights are engaged, what harms are likely, what safeguards are proposed, and why the final balance is fair. If they don’t, the decision is exposed on appeal or in judicial review. This isn’t “Strasbourg meddling”; it’s British planning law doing its job, using the Convention as guard-rails to keep decisions fair, evidence-based and proportionate.

“But Strasbourg meedles in British affairs!” – Not how it works

The Convention system is built on subsidiarity: national authorities have the primary job of protecting rights; Strasbourg is a back-stop. That’s why you must exhaust domestic remedies first; it’s why most UK applications never reach a full judgment; and it’s why the UK’s application rate is the lowest per head in Europe and most UK applications are filtered out. In short: British judges first; Strasbourg rarely; last resort.

The knock on damage of quitting the ECHR

Walking away from the ECHR wouldn’t just hit individuals. It would ripple through domestic law – no right to a fair trial, no right to freedom of expression, no right to privacy and on and on and on, UK credibility (we helped design these rules), and co-operation frameworks with European partners that assume ECHR alignment. Government reports to Parliament literally track how we implement judgments — the opposite of a state that can’t live with the system. Tearing up the framework to score political points weakens our hand abroad and our safeguards at home.

So where does this leave the Tories & Reform UK

It assumes you the British public would be happy to:

1. Deport people regardless of the risk of torture or death on return;

2. Ditch fair processes (so more mistakes happen and innocent people pay the price);

3. Junk basic safeguards that protect everyone — not just migrants; and

4. Absorb the collateral damage to our justice system and international standing.

Given the facts above, this looks less like “taking control” and more like taking a sledgehammer to the very protections which protect you — including those used by planning committees and UK courts every week to keep decisions fair, proportionate and lawful.

The bottom line

This isn’t “just about deportations.” It’s about whether we keep the legal guard-rails that protect each and everyone of us, and people we’ll never meet. The right to life is the clearest, simplest of those guard-rails. Dismantling it to score political points would be self-harm dressed up as toughness — and the way UK planning and UK courts already weave human rights into everyday decisions shows why those guard-rails matter in real life, not just in textbooks.

This is NOT legal advice on human rights. If you need that then speak to a solicitor or Barrister’s chambers.

The Shepway Vox Team

Deliciously Delightful Dissent