Human Rights: Scope, Application, and Impacts on Civil Rights

This report discusses the European Convention on Human Rights, its scope and application, and its impacts on civil rights. It analyzes the protection of civil rights, including the right to life, right to security, freedom of expression, and freedom of thought conscience and religion. It also evaluates the Human Rights Act 1998 as a means of protecting civil rights.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Essay...........................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Human rights refers to motivation rule or norms for particular and definite standards
regarding human behaviour and are consistently protected in international law as well as in
municipal (Chaney, 2021). This report will highlight general scope and application of European
convention on human rights, analysis over protection of civil rights along with their impacts
over right to life, right to security, freedom of expression and freedom of thought conscience and
religion. Apart from this, it will also discuss the constitutional impacts of the Human Rights Act
1998 along with its evaluation as a means of protecting civil rights.
MAIN BODY
Essay
The European convention on human rights protects the human rights of people into the
countries that belongs to the Council of Europe. The member states of the Council which
includes 47 members including the United Kingdom have signed the meeting. The complete title
of the meeting were “Convention for the protection of Human Rights and fundamental
freedom”. The aim of the Council of Europe is to achieve greater level of unity among their
members and that one of the methods by which that aim is to be pursued is the maintenance
along with further realization of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedom. In order to apply the
ECHR, an individual required to lodge an application directly to the court in the France.
Compliance with the European convention over Human Rights is safeguarded by the European
Court of Human Rights and by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (Richmond,
2021). The Convention provide services towards specific rights and freedoms along with
prohibits unfair as well as harmful practices which includes the right to life, freedom from
torture, freedom from slavery, right to a fair trail, right to respect for family and private life,
freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, right to participate into free elections and so on.
The convention is a legal agreement among two or more states in which states are invited
to first sign a convention, showing that they want to follow what it says and them when they are
sure that they are able to do, so then they are able to rectify it. From its very beginning as since
1950, the convention has undergone varied amendments along with given rise to many other
Council of Europe conventions. The member governments of the Council of Europe work
towards greater unity as well as peace based upon Human Rights and fundamental freedom.
1

There are certain Articles that are involved within the same includes Article 1 Obligation to
respect human rights states that everyone has the right states into this convention, Article 2
which includes the Right to Life, Article 3 which involves the Prohibition of Torture according
to which no one has the right to hurt or torture an individual. Article 4 which is prohibition of
slavery and forced labour in which it is prohibited to treaty one as a slave or to impose forced
labour, Article 5 which is related to right to security and liberty according to which if an
individual arrested then it must be necessary to understand the reason of it, Article 6 which is
right to fair trial before any unbiased and independent judge, Article 7 which includes no
punishment without law, Article 8 which is related to Right to respect for private and family life,
etc. (Fenwick and Fenwick, 2019)
With the involvement of Right to Life, the impacts that have been directed over people
include that each and every persons' life is protected by law and without this it is impossible to
enjoy other rights. No one is allowed to convict to death penalty. It is among the Human Rights
that belongs to all the people that embody key values into the society and fulfil the means of
protection for all people living among the society. The purpose of Article 5 i.e. Right to Liberty
and Security which is of the highest significance in a democratic society. It includes the rights
through which people must not be arrested and detained unless provided for by law (Cameron,
2018). This right applied to all forms of punishment within which people are disadvantaged of
their liberty not just criminal justice processes. In this everyone who is deprived of their liberty
by arrest or confinement shall be entitled to take proceedings by which the lawfulness of his
detainment shall be decided rapidly by court and released order if the punishment is not lawful.
In context of Freedom of Expression which comes under Article 10 states that each
person has the right to freedom of expression which includes freedom to hold opinions, and to
receive information or ideas without having any kind of interference by public authority
irrespective of frontiers. The activities come under these freedoms might be subject to
conditions, formalities, penalties and restrictions which are prescribed by law and are significant
in a democratic society. According to Article 9 which is related to Freedom of thought,
conscience and religion, it has been evaluated that each person has the right to freedom of
conscience, religion and thoughts in which one have the right to change their religion or belief
along with freedom either in single or community manner in private or public in order to
manifest his belief, religion, teaching, worship, practice and observance (Svensson-McCarthy,
2

2021). Freedom to evident one;s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations that
are prescribed by law and are significant into democratic society.
The interrelationship among all the above presented articles states that each article deals
with their own individual right. The relationship of above illustrated four convention rights
includes that convention is a human right instrument with having an explicit social development
dimensions which reaffirms that all persons must enjoy their human rights along with
fundamental freedom on an equal basis with others. It illustrates in clear and precise manner
about all categories of rights applied to persons as well as identify areas in which adaptations
have to be prepared for people to appropriately exercise their rights related to the facts that
whether their rights have been violated or where the protection of rights must be reinforced
(Smith and Miller, 2022). Right to live is one thing but it is related to right to live with liberty
and security illustrates the concepts further in more detailed manner.
According to this, it has been highlighted that this concept is based upon protecting
individuals' freedom from unreasonable detention as opposed to protecting personal safety. One
have specific right for their own freedom which means that nobody is imprisoned or detained
without any good and considerable reason. Thus, this automatically elaborate the right to life on
their own terms and conditions but along with fulfilment of basic rules that have been incurred
by government for suitable living. These are basically the social rights which imposes a positive
obligation over government to take necessary steps in order to make sure that each and every
right to life is not violated which resulted into the socio-economic discrimination. Moreover,
The freedom of expression and freedom of thought conscience and religion highlights that each
and every person has complete right to believe and think whatever they please. Everybody has
complete right to express their feelings and thoughts without having any kind of fear of being
punished or silenced (Bayefsky, 2021). It refers to freedom to consider viewpoint of an
individual along with facts as well as thoughts of people. In addition to this it also includes
religious expression, which refers to dissimilar ways that people choose to express their religion
to others. This can be done in different ways by wearing specific clothes or even by displaying
symbols. People generally choose their religion just to let other people understand about their
religion with which they are belonged to.
The Human Rights Act that had been passed in 1998 by labour government who placed
certain rights and freedom that has been contained into the ECHR in the domestic law of United
3

Kingdom. With the involvement of such rights it has been possible to challenge public
authorities in UK courts for possible violations of the rights that has been contained into the
convention. The Human Rights 1998 sets certain fundamental rights and freedoms that is
required to fulfilled and adopts by each and every citizen of UK. This incorporates the rights
which have been prepared on the basis of European Convention on Human Rights into domestic
British Laws. The acts are highly able and suitable to effects the rights and freedoms which
guaranteed under the European Convention (Levy and Sznaider, 2021). This illustrates that
public authority should have to act lawfully and in a manner which is highly compatible with a
convention right. The Human Rights and the current UK constitution provides a great level of
balance among respect of democracy and the requirement of protest human rights. The
constitutions are the ones who establish basic mechanisms for the interpretation as well as
reinforcement of the law in cases that are belongs to violation and disputes. Constitutions are
presented through different titles for the sections which articulated fundamentals of freedom as
well as human rights. The Human Rights Act is often perceived as having substantially changed
the United Kingdom constitution. It helps top provide judges of UK with new authority in order
to review whether complying with public institutions with the rights in ECHR. The constitution
protects the Rights of individuals against government as the Bill of Rights protects freedom of
religion, speech, right to keep and bear arms, freedom of petition along with the freedom of
assembly. This also enable to prohibit unreasonable acquiring and search, unusual punishment
along with stimulate self accusation.
The Human rights Act 1998 as a means of Protecting civil rights are considered both
human rights as well as civil rights in order to protect human being against injustice, oppression
and oppression. Human rights are the things that are universally applied along with provided to
every human being whereas, civil rights are dependent upon the citizen's context and
government or political authorities. Civil rights are the most important component among the
democratic country. This is the thing which highlights guaranteed equal level of social
opportunities as well as protection under the law regardless of religion, race or any other
characteristics. Human rights are basically acquires by being alive while civil rights re the things
that one can obtain by being a legal member of any political state. One individual is liable for
human rights as one have been born as a human (Tichá and et.al., 2018). On the other hand, civil
rights occurs as a result of some human rights that are being put them into law and regulations.
4

The most common type of civil rights are related to prohibition of discrimination that are based
upon religion, ethnicity, race and gender which also includes protections for persons whose are
defendant or suspected of crime. For example by using right to speech, one can able to fulfil the
requirement related to civil rights that are related to speak up for what is right and what one
cares about. The Human Rights Act 1998 has provided three major impacts which includes one
can seek justice in British courts (Blikhar and Huralenko, 2021). This includes that if the civil
rights have been breached at any point of time then the person has the power to case into British
court rather than having to seek justice from the European court of Human rights. This ensures
that all public bodies must respect the rights of individuals.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been concluded that Human Rights plays a major role in
one's life as these are the ones because of which nobody has to face abuses and discrimination
because each and every person should have to get a chance to develop their talents. But there are
various people across the world that are unable to get such basic rights and freedoms as well.
Thus, The UK government ad imposed certain rights and freedoms in order to participate into
the activities with the fulfilment of the human rights in the most considerable ways.
5

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bayefsky, A., 2021. The UN human rights treaty system: Universality at the crossroads. BRILL.
Blikhar, M. and Huralenko, N., 2021. Evolutionary trends in the interpretation of the European
Court of Human Rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Cameron, I., 2018. An introduction to the European convention on human rights. Iustus förlag.
Chaney, P., 2021. Human rights and social welfare pathologies: civil society perspectives on
contemporary practice across UK jurisdictions–critical analysis of third cycle UPR
data. The International Journal of Human Rights, 25(4), pp.639-674.
Fenwick, H. and Fenwick, D., 2019 National Counter-terrorism (CT) policies and challenges to
human rights and civil liberties: case study of the UK.
Levy, D. and Sznaider, N., 2021. Human rights and memory. In Human Rights and Memory.
Penn State University Press.
Richmond, K.M., 2021. Human Rights Compatibility of Biometric Data Retention on Shared
UK Databases.
Smith, M. and Miller, S., 2022. The ethical application of biometric facial recognition
technology. Ai & Society, 37(1), pp.167-175.
Svensson-McCarthy, A.L., 2021. The international law of human rights and States of exception:
with special reference to the travaux préparatoires and case-law of the international
monitoring organs. Brill.
Tichá, R. and et.al., 2018. Alignment between the convention on the rights of persons with
disabilities and the national core indicators adult consumer survey. Journal of Policy
and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities, 15(3), pp.247-255.
6