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The Human Rights Act 1998 (c42) is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which received Royal Assent on 9 November 1998, and mostly came into force on 2 October 2000.〔http://www.justice.org.uk/images/pdfs/HRAINT.PDF〕 Its aim was to incorporate into UK law the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights. The Act makes a remedy for breach of a Convention right available in UK courts, without the need to go to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg. In particular, the Act makes it unlawful for any public body to act in a way which is incompatible with the Convention, unless the wording of any other primary legislation provides no other choice. It also requires the judiciary (including tribunals) to take account of any decisions, judgment or opinion of the European Court of Human Rights, and to interpret legislation, as far as possible, in a way which is compatible with Convention rights. However, if it is not possible to interpret an Act of Parliament so as to make it compatible with the Convention, the judges are not allowed to override it. All they can do is issue a declaration of incompatibility. This declaration does not affect the validity of the Act of Parliament: in that way, the Human Rights Act seeks to maintain the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty (see: Constitution of the United Kingdom). However, judges may strike down secondary legislation. Under the Act, individuals retain the right to sue in the Strasbourg court. David Cameron has criticised the Act since 2007 and his second ministry plans to replace it with a "British Bill of Rights". ==Historical context== The Convention was drafted by the Council of Europe after World War II. Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe was the Chair of the Committee on Legal and Administrative Questions of the Council's Consultative Assembly from 1949 to 1952, and oversaw the drafting of the European Convention on Human Rights. It was designed to incorporate a traditional civil liberties approach to securing "effective political democracy", from the strong traditions of freedom and liberty in the United Kingdom. As a founding member of the Council of Europe, the UK acceded to the European Convention on Human Rights in March 1951. However it was not until the 1960s that British citizens were able to bring claims in the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). During the 1980s, groups such as Charter 88 (which invoked the 300th anniversary of the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and the Bill of Rights 1689) accused the executive of misusing its power and argued that a new British Bill of Rights was needed to secure human rights in the UK. In its manifesto for the 1997 general election, the Labour party pledged to incorporate the European Convention into domestic law. When the election resulted in a landslide Labour victory, the party, under the leadership of Tony Blair, fulfilled this pledge through Parliamentary passage of the Human Rights Act the following year. The 1997 white paper "Rights Brought Home"〔Home Office, “Rights Brought Home: The Human Rights Bill” (Cm 3782, 1997) para 1.14〕 stated: It takes on average five years to get an action into the European Court of Human Rights once all domestic remedies have been exhausted; and it costs an average of £30,000. Bringing these rights home will mean that the British people will be able to argue for their rights in the British courts – without this inordinate delay and cost. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Human Rights Act 1998」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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