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Closing Plenary – Jack
responsibilities have been seen together, and if
rights and responsibilities are already the other
Straw MP
side of the same coin which stipulates our
The conference closed with a
fundamental human rights and freedoms, “why
should this not be more prominent, explicit and
speech by Justice Secretary Jack
clearly articulated?”
Straw who was inundated with
He looked at the development of law in Britain
questions and spoke with many - how courts from a very early period wrestled
delegates personally after the
with this issue of responsibilities as well as rights,
conference ended.
and the development of what became the Law
Jack Straw argued that the Human Rights
of Equity, with the courts under the then-Lord
Act will be seen as “one of this administration’s
Chancellor intervening where people claiming
their rights would have led to an unjust result.
greatest achievements”. He defended his
The consequent Maxims of Equity are embodied
interview with the Daily Mail which discussed
in parts of our legal system, and “the time
the Human Rights Act becoming a kind of
has come to draw them out and to put them
‘villains’ charter’, arguing that it addressed the
into a general wider declaration of rights and
concerns of the public and engaged them in
responsibilities.”
a proper dialectical process: “if you’re going to
On the question of whether it is possible to
try and move people on, what you have to do
do that in a document which has meaning but
is to accept the point where they are”. He was
that does not lead to endless and unnecessary
adamant that his government has “absolutely
litigation, the Minister did not accept that
no intention of detracting or undermining the
there is no point in having a Bill of Rights and
incorporation of the European Convention, nor
Responsibilities unless each part of it is equally
the rest of the key parts of the Act”.
justiciable. He suggested the force derives from
The Justice Secretary spoke of the
the degree to which the meaning of those
Government’s intention to publish a green
texts is shared by a society, referring to the
paper to look at how to balance the rights in
constitutional documents in the United States,
the Human Rights Act with responsibilities
8
. He
and the Canadian and South African Bills of
said his concern is to ensure that responsibilities
Rights, which act as a symbol and mechanism of
become as integral to our social framework as national unity as well as having some justiciable
24
rights, without making rights contingent upon power.
responsibilities. Throughout the ages rights and For Jack Straw, a Bill of Rights and
8 The paper was published on 23 March 2009. To download the paper visit: http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/rights-responsibilities.htm
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