ABSTRACT
Between 1976 and 1996, there were five major attempts to introduce a Human Rights Bill into UK law, and many attempts to at least raise the issue; the overwhelming majority of such attempts have advocated incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms into UK law using the mechanism of an ordinary Act of Parliament. (By incorporation of the Convention, such Bills have meant Arts 1-18 and the First Protocol.) The House of Lords Select Committee as long ago as 1978 was unanimous on this issue: To attempt to incorporate de novo a set of fundamental rights would be a fruitless exercise.’ Starting from scratch and developing a Bill of Rights for the UK would almost inevitably have been a burdensome task, because the political parties (and the various pressure groups) would have had enormous difficulty in reaching agreement on it, while the process of hearing and considering all the representations made by interested parties would have been extremely lengthy. This is suggested by the experience of Austria, where a Commission was set up to draw up a code of fundamental rights. After 12 years, it had produced only alternative drafts of two rights. Apart from the cumbersome nature of the process, a Bill of Rights might have taken too much account of the interests of the government in power at the time when it was passed.
