3. Human rights law

Abstract

The European Convention on Human Rights not only guaranteed certain rights, but also created an international Court. The Human Rights Act gives English judges dramatic but limited techniques for vindicating the Convention rights. This chapter explains what the judges in Strasbourg and in England have done with the techniques for control of administration that result from the Convention and the Human Rights Act. The chapter addresses the content and the structure of the Convention rights, the ways in which those rights are protected in English administrative law, particularly through the Human Rights Act 1998, and the tests of proportionality required by the Convention.