100,000 law firms feeding off ten years of human rights

Labour was last night accused of creating a 'human rights industry' containing more than 1,000 specialist law practices. 

The astonishing number making a living from the Human Rights Act emerged ahead of the 10th anniversary of its enactment today. 

The figure is the equivalent of 100 rights practices setting up every year of the Act's existence - or two every week. 

The 1998 legislation, which enshrined the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law, has led to a sharp increase for lawyers in cases involving privacy, inhumane treatment or the right to family life.  

Using the Act, the rights of a raft of minority groups, including travellers, prisoners, gays and murderers seeking shorter sentences have been strengthened. 

Now research by the Tories has revealed the bewildering scale of the rights industry. There are 831 solicitors firms in 

England and Wales dealing with human rights and 72 individual barristers. 

In Scotland,173 firms which do rights work are listed, while there are 60 specialist advocates. 

The Tories also found more than 137 books with the words 'Human Rights Act' in the title. 

Their spokesman on justice Nick Herbert said: 'Labour's Human Rights Act has been a gift to litigants and bureaucrats, fostering grievance and a rights culture while sidelining personal and social responsibility. 

The Act must be replaced to achieve a balance bet- ween rights and responsibilities.' 

Justice Secretary Jack Straw, who piloted the Bill through Parliament a decade ago, admitted it was disappointing that support for the law had 'dissipated'. 

The legislation has been widely blamed for the failure to deport fanatics. 

Despite Tony Blair's promise to deport extremists in the wake of July 7, only one 'preacher of hate' has been forced from our shores. 

The nine people who have been deported on 'national security grounds' since 2005 were Algerians, who went voluntarily. 

Those permitted to stay - on grounds they may face ill-treatment- include terror suspect Abu Qatada, known as Osama Bin Laden's ambassador in Europe. 

But Mr Straw hails the Act as 'one of the great legal, constitutional and social reforms of this Government'. 

He said: 'Contrary to soothsayers' predictions it would cripple the justice system, encourage vexatious litigants and throw common sense out of the window, the 1998 Act has neither caused a gridlock in our courts nor fundamentally changed the character of the law.' 

Human rights campaign group Liberty also defended the Act. 

Director Shami Chakrabarti said: 'It is heart-breakingly illogical for Conservatives who have stood shoulder to shoulder with Liberty on personal privacy and fair trials to bash the Human Rights Act.' 

James Slack's Analysis

Justice Secretary Jack Straw admits: 'I have to accept that what the Human Rights Act has not done is find a place in the public's affection.' 

Indeed, in one recent poll six out of ten people said they wanted to scrap it. 

So what went wrong? Firstly, public faith has been shattered by a series of hugely controversial human rights rulings. 

These include the granting of £4,000 compensation each to prisoners forced to go cold turkey in prison and allowing those refused asylum to seek free NHS care. 

In a world where Alzheimer's patients are denied £2.50-a-day drugs on cost grounds this was bound to cause animosity. 

Secondly, protecting the public from terrorist attack is vastly more important than in 1998. 

Yet the Act has thwarted the Government at every turn. Ministers were ordered by the Law Lords to release international terror suspects being held without trial in Belmarsh. 

Then, when they sought to place the suspects - including Osama Bin Laden's friend Abu Qatada - under control orders, these restrictions were diluted by judges. 

But the influence of human rights law extends far beyond the court judgments, which brings us to the third explanation for what went wrong. 

Ministers complain that the pernicious influence of the Act has been exaggerated, insisting it was not, as has been claimed, responsible for a criminal involved in a siege being given KFC. But the truth is it has created a climate in which such absurdities are possible and in which public bodies are so afraid of being sued they take decisions verging on the criminal.  continues here

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