ABSTRACT
As compliance with the Human Rights Act is as a matter of form voluntary, one needs to scrutinise whether compliance is compulsory as a matter of substance. The obvious approach for considering whether a non-legal but binding obligation exists within the constitution is to ask whether there is a constitutional convention. This chapter reviews the approach of Ivor Jennings to ascertain whether a convention exists to bring people closer to identifying the 'political costs', which are so often referred to as underlying compliance with judicially expounded human rights principles. However, in terms of a reason for compliance, there is no legal duty of compliance with the Human Rights Act, although there may be a simultaneous international law obligation under the Convention itself. There have been many examples of ministers and supporters of the Human Rights Act talking as if there were a domestic rule of law requirement to comply with the Act.
