Human Rights and the Common Law - Where Next after Kennedy v the Charity Commission? The Jan Grodecki Lecture 2014
16 Pages Posted: 10 Nov 2014
Date Written: November 9, 2014
Abstract
In Kennedy v The Charity Commission the Supreme Court stated that, in any dispute involving human rights, the natural starting point is UK domestic law, both common law and statutes, and not the law of the European Convention of Human Rights. The main question I seek to answer in this paper is: Why does it matter whether human rights cases are decided under English domestic law or under the HRA? Drawing on the history of rights protection in France and in the common law, I consider this question in two parts: why does it matter to lawyers? And why does it matter to everyone, lawyers and non-lawyers alike? (This paper was delivered as the Jan Grodecki Lecture at the University of Leicester on 23 October 2014).
Keywords: human rights, Kennedy v The Charity Commission, Human Rights Act, European Convention on Human Rights, comparative law, English law, French law
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