ABSTRACT
In the long history of Britain and its laws, there have been a number of general statutes or charters concerning basic rights. 1 However, there had never been anything quite like the Human Rights Act 1998 (UK) (‘HRA 1998’). 2 That Act represented a shift from what had generally been an approach of scepticism, and even hostility, towards a comprehensive list of enumerated rights. Such an approach was seen as incompatible with two fundamental tenets of the English legal system. These were that the rights (and obligations) of individuals were such as were declared by the sovereign parliament or by the judges in ways not inconsistent with parliamentary law. And that the rights of subjects were unlimited, except to the extent that parliamentary or judgemade laws imposed obligations that restricted the individual’s freedom of action.
