LEAVING ECHR ‘WILL STOP JUDGES MAKING POLITICAL DECISIONS’ – The UK’s withdrawal would not damage its international reputation 

Britain should leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in order to stop judges making political decisions, a Tory grandee has said.

Lord Lilley, a former Cabinet minister, said the “vague” terms in which the ECHR was drafted had enabled courts to extend their reach into the political sphere and override parliamentary decisions.

In a report for the Centre for Policy Studies, a think tank, he said the most “egregious” example was the decision by the European Court of Human Rights to back claims that people should be able to seek redress and compensation if their governments failed to take sufficient measures to protect them from climate change.

He said this extended the reach of the court to environmental matters, which did not feature in the ECHR at all.

This was a consequence of treating the ECHR as a “living instrument”, which enabled the European Court of Human Rights to create new laws in areas never envisaged by original signatory states to the convention, he said.

By giving courts power to interpret vague ECHR rights and override parliamentary decisions, the ECHR transferred law-making authority from elected representatives to unaccountable judges, said Lord Lilley.

This was a consequence of treating the ECHR as a “living instrument”, which enabled the European Court of Human Rights to create new laws in areas never envisaged by original signatory states to the convention, he added

Lord Lilley said the UK’s withdrawal from the convention would not damage its international reputation or weaken its influence.