People with learning disabilities – COVID-19 Support and Action Group
Wednesday 23rd February 2022
Time: 12:30pm-2:30pm https://us06web.zoom.us/j/97471173675 Meeting ID: 974 7117 3675
1. Present
Andrew Firielle Chris Sarah
Jenny Simone Kweku
Raymond Olcay Sam
Peter Charles
Russell Kieran Darren
Phil Geraldine
Guests: Rosie and Sophie Apologies: Gary
Vicky
2. Introductions
Everyone introduced themselves. We then we welcomed Sophie O’Connell and Rosie Harding.
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3. Human Rights Act Reform consultation
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Rosie spoke about the Government’s plans to get rid of the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights as it’s too tied with the European Convention of Human Rights. The Government asked for an independent review to come up with reasons for a reform. It said there didn’t need to be a review. It was published on the same day as the consultation was launched. |
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Sometimes there is confusion about the European Convention of Human Rights and leaving the European Union. |
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The Human Rights Act has had some bad press over the years. This is usually to do with people in prison, terrorists, and immigration. |
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The press has highlighted these cases and helped to give the Human Rights Act a bad name. |
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Rosie suggested making the most of stories we can tell about how it has made our lives better. |
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Lots of the questions are technical and legal, and unnecessary (and deliberately) complicated. |
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Sophie said that the British Institute of Human Rights (BIHR) has done a video and has some templates. Question 29 is the most important one to answer. |
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Rosie said it’s not very well written, the claims that they make about what is wrong about the Act is incorrect. Dominic Raab is |
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the Minister for Justice. David Cameron spoke about getting rid of the Act in 2006. We need to give them evidence to say otherwise. |
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Some of the main points include: They want to restrict
compensation depending
on previous behaviour that
may not be ‘good enough’
. They’re not planning to get rid of the rights but make it harder to claim those rights. |
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Question: Section 3 At the moment the Human Rights Act says the UK courts have to interpret our laws in line with how the Court in Strasbourg interprets them. They want to get rid of section 3 – the interpretive duty. The |
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government want to delete it so it falls back on how UK courts interpret law – how the ‘ordinary person’ understands it, or what they thought Parliament intended, or other court cases. This could mean a bigger gap between what our courts say and what the ECHR. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that this is a problem. Question 2: Declarations
of incapability. |
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Rights Act the courts can say that regulation is void and doesn’t apply. If there’s the proposed change then there isn’t an immediate impact on the law. Our legal system is split in to 3 different parts: 1. Executive - Government 2. Parliament - supreme 3. Judiciary - the courts |
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Primary law In order to get an act of law there needs to be a:
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this legislation can be declared void. |
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We talked about how it affects us. For example, getting equal access to health care. Chris asked about compensation for those deemed fit. |
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Rosie said that people with autism and learning disabilities end up in prison more than other people because of the way that law works in a discriminatory way. So if people in prison have their rights restricted this can have more of an impact of people with learning disabilities. Sam asked about appealing about medical treatment that is being refused because of capacity. Rosie explained that access to medical treatment isn’t always |
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covered by the Human Rights Act. Health Care falls under economic, social, and cultural rights. Human Rights act is civil and political rights. Section 6 – this is about agencies performing a public service (hospitals, local authorities, courts etc.), have to act in a way that uphold your human rights. Want to change this to if they are performing within the law they are upholding our rights. This section helps disabled people to get their rights acknowledged. It would be good to provide your own examples. Covid-19 restrictions had challenged this by imposing blanket restrictions, such as visiting people. |
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Ray’s question about information and having easy read. The |
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Government did not do this well during the pandemic and haven’t published easy read for this consultation. |
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Permission Stage There’s a proposal to introduce a new Permissions Stage before people can bring Human Rights Act claims. You already have to show that you’ve been significantly affected and it’s had an effect on you, so it doesn’t seem necessary to bring another stage in. It’s suggesting there are problems with the process (too many claims wasting time). This will make it more difficult to bring challenges – this could put people off and make the process more expensive. The alternative to go to the EU which isn’t a realistic |
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option for many people. This is Q8 & Q9 is about the Permission Stage. It seems an entirely pointless proposal from the Government. Important questions that need to be raised and discussed may not make it to court if this is in place. For examples Heidi’s case is about Human Rights principles, but may not reach the threshold of ‘significant disadvantage’ if this stage is in place. |
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Russell said it’s really hard to understand the questions. Sophie said that it is really difficult to understand – even with someone who has legal training. BIHR has really good guidance to help with responses. |
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Rosie agreed – it seems that the Government’s understanding is of the law is wrong. Kieran said is seems it may be a tactic and a ploy to put people off of making claims and exercising their human rights. Rosie said that by adding in a hurdle it will prevent people from bringing claims but it won’t stop the Human Rights abuses or infringement. If they apply for ‘permissions’ and exhaust their local remedies they only have the Strasbourg court will be more expensive. Simone said it could be down to discretion of judges as to what is important or not. Also these points need to be included: 1. Taking out of taking into account European Convention of Human |
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Rights judgements – must be retained.
Andrew gave an example of reporting disability hate crime; do people have the trust and confidence to report it? Do the courts see and understand these barriers and why people may not report things? Sophie said it is something to include as the overall effect of what the Government want to do, it could potentially send the message that human rights aren’t as important as they were. The penalties and fines won’t be as high so we take a step back rather than forwards. |
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It’s hard to unpick all the proposed changes – people may see these as just little changes but don’t understand the big impacts they will have on people’s everyday lives. Rosie said the more experiences and examples you can give in the response the better. |
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Andrew asked about how best we can put our response together. Rosie suggested not worrying about answering all the questions. For example: Don’t answer the technical questions like, how courts interpret the Bill of Rights, or the limits of what is a public authority – e.g. a commissioned service provider. Sometimes not clear in prison services. |
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Do talk about the Permissions Stage and how it will stop people who do have their human rights stamped on deal with it. Do talk about other Conventions and other rights like the UNCRPD. They’re not proposing to add in any more rights or change the existing rights, but just ‘little things’ that will reduce access to the courts and to justice – this will make English law potentially further away from UNCRPD, which is a treaty that we ratified and should be accessible to people in England. Do focus on the changes to what public authorities need to do as this is our interface to human rights. Infringing human rights is about public authorities infringing our rights. Do talk about how the proposal to introduce ‘behaviour’ will affect |
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getting compensation if your rights have been breached. This may affect people with learning disabilities and autism. Do add the fact that it isn’t a proper consultation – no easy read information and difficult questions. This would be Q 29 – also a place to say, keep your hands off our Human Rights, it works! Ray shared an example of a negative experience of someone thinking he was drunk in a public place. Rosie explained that the Human Rights Act is about the state and public authorities, not private individuals such as a shop and a person – it falls in to discrimination law, such as the Equalities Act. Simone suggested finding someone who could put the Government on legal notice about not having |
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easy read available. Kieran asked if we could get legal support from a solicitor/lawyer. Simone suggested finding someone who could put the Government on legal notice about not having easy read available. Action: Sarah will write up the main points for a response by 8th March. |
Information share Research Project
Rosie is putting together a grant application to make suggestions around changing the Mental Capacity Law.
Everyone said they would like to hear more about it. Rosie reassured people that people would be employed to work on the project.
She will come back to the group when there is more news about it.
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Legal Action: Louise Whitfield from Liberty may be the person to contact for support for Heidi’s court case. Simone will send her contact details. Simone said the legal team is looking at if they can put in a separate legal argument. The court is restricting access to how many people can attend the court case to 20 people. She has written to the court about this, but encouraged people to turn up if they can 8th March.
Next meeting:
Wednesday 2nd March 2022 - 12:30pm - 2:30pm
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/97471173675
Chris’s Art Work
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