Thursday, 24 January 2019

Rory Stewart: ‘I’ll resign if prison violence doesn’t improve’.Today Justice Secretary outlines future vision for probation. Net work issues. suicide prevention plan published .May considering scrapping Human human rights and why we should keep it.

Jan 2019

Rory Stewart: ‘I’ll resign if prison violence doesn’t improve’ http://ow.ly/tiwj30nqQKZ

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Justice Secretary David Gauke has set out his vision for the future of probation services in England and Wales today, announcing plans to change and improve the current system and invest £22 million in extra support for offenders leaving prison. "Perhaps David Gauke should of versioned the failing of the Moj.

Government is strengthening offender supervision in existing CRC contracts and investing an extra £22 million each year to improve through-the-gate support

CRC and NPS areas to be aligned - improving joint working and strengthening ties with key partners, including the third sector, local authorities and PCCs

Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) contracts will end two years early in 2020, with plans to work with the market to design new and improved contracts.

A consultation document published today outlines the Ministry of Justice’s intention to strengthen the supervision of offenders and increase confidence in community sentences.

It builds on the recent publication of our female offender and employment and education strategies, to demonstrate the department’s commitment to tackling reoffending by: investing in community provision; strengthening alternatives to short custodial sentences; and boosting rehabilitation and prospects for offenders.

Probation relies heavily on joint working with a range of agencies and today’s consultation outlines plans to create a more integrated and collaborative system, by improving partnerships with PCCs and the third sector.

In the future, CRC and NPS areas will be aligned, with ten new probation regions in England, simplifying and strengthening ties with key local partners and creating opportunities to co-commission rehabilitation services with PCCs.

Reforms to probation in 2015, known as ‘Transforming Rehabilitation’, were challenging, ambitious and have led to 40,000 extra offenders a year receiving support and supervision on release - a positive change for public safety.

This additional monitoring has been carried out by newly formed, ‘Community Rehabilitation Companies’ (CRCs) who manage low and medium-risk offenders, and the publicly funded National Probation Service (NPS), who manage higher-risk offenders.

While CRCs have reduced the overall number of people reoffending, it is clear that probation providers have faced significant challenges. Unforeseen changes in the types of offenders coming to the courts and the sentences they receive have substantially reduced CRC income and affected the quality of frontline services.

That is why the consultation document sets out urgent action being taken to address existing issues with CRC contracts. This includes ending current CRC contracts early in 2020, improving supervision and through-the-gate support in the meantime, and using the lessons learnt so far to put in place improved services in the future, with more effective commercial arrangements.

Secretary of State, David Gauke said:

I am determined to have a probation service that protects the public, commands the confidence of the courts and ultimately reduces reoffending.

So we are taking decisive action now to improve the delivery of probation services in England and Wales.

We want to see less reliance on ineffective short prison terms, and in order to achieve this courts must have confidence that probation services will deliver tough community sentences - sentences that punish, but also help those who commit crime to turn their lives around and stop offending.

I am confident that the proposals set out in this consultation will play a major role in helping us to achieve this aim.

To improve services in the next two years, the Ministry of Justice is investing an additional £22 million a year in through-the-gate support for offenders when they leave prison, as part of wider changes to contracts to stabilise CRC delivery until the end of 2020 and allow CRCs to continue to deliver the level of service required.

The Ministry of Justice will also work with London and Greater Manchester to co-design future services in those areas as part of existing devolution arrangements.

In addition, the devolved responsibilities of the Welsh Government and existing arrangements in Wales make the delivery of probation services fundamentally different to England.

To reflect this, the consultation sets out proposals to bring the supervision of all offenders in Wales into the NPS and explore how wider partners can help to improve rehabilitative support for offenders, by better joining up with health, housing and other local services.

Alongside the structural and contractual changes, a new professional register will be introduced, helping staff to move between roles and develop their careers. The consultation also seeks views on improving the training and development of staff.

The consultation will seek to gather views and expertise from a range of potential providers, including the voluntary sector, as well as other stakeholders, and will inform the future delivery of probation services in England and Wales.

Ministry of Justice (MoJ) staff have access to their usual computer systems. Work continues with our main suppliers Atos and Microsoft to restore services, and we expect all court sites to be fully operational by the time they open in morning

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Moj the past week had experienced major IT network issues. They say it not a cyber attack and there has been no loss of data.

It was said today , most Ministry of Justice (MoJ) staff have access to their usual computer systems. Work continues with our main suppliers Atos and Microsoft to restore services, and we expect all court sites to be fully operational by the time they open tomorrow morning.

https://youtu.be/ntZUd8puykI

The current situation

currently (as of 23 January):

most MoJ staff have access to the IT systems

we have restored access to a further 309 MoJ sites

we expect to have restored access to all HMCTS sites by Thursday morning and we hope to have restored access to all National Probation Service sites by the end of Thursday

email and internet access is working across the estate via Wi-Fi and on mobile devices

the prison estate is unaffected

reformed online services such as divorce and probate have continued to work throughout the disruption

hearings are continuing to progress in our courts (though we appreciate the extra burden placed on court users still without network access)

Impact on prisoners

The issues have caused frustration and inconvenience for our staff and users. But they have not led to detaining defendants or freeing criminals unlawfully.

Criminal Justice secure email system (CJSM)

The separate and unrelated issue last week affecting 12.5 per cent of users of the Criminal Justice secure email system (CJSM) has now been resolved.

All users can currently send and receive secure emails and we have restored the email history of all inboxes affected.

Why has this happened?

The network disruption initially affected devices connecting to the main MoJ network. This network is also used by HMCTS and other MoJ agencies and a number of arms-length bodies.

Together with our suppliers Atos and Microsoft, we are working hard to identify the root cause of the issues.

The network issues are unrelated to our £1 billion modernisation of the courts system. The disruption in recent days has been to the existing MoJ network. The Common Platform system is still in testing phase so, contrary to earlier reports, has not been affected.

Teams will continue to work around the clock to resolve the remaining issues. We will continue to update this news story with progress made.

Law courts in chaos as IT meltdown disrupts thousands of cases

Embarrassment for MoJ as network repeatedly crashes across England and Wales

Thousands of cases have been disrupted or delayed across England and Wales after the courts service’s main computer network repeatedly crashed, preventing lawyers and judges from working.

The communication failures, which started last week, are a significant embarrassment for the Ministry of Justice, which is investing £1.2bn in a high-profile programme promoting online hearings which aims to replace the legal profession’s traditional reliance on mountains of paperwork.

The IT breakdown meant that staff at the MoJ were unable to send emails, wireless connections went down, jurors could not be enrolled and barristers could not register for attendance payments. Courts were left unsure of when some defendants were due to appear and some court files could not be retrieved, leading to prosecutions being adjourned.

usan Acland-Hood, the head of HM Courts & Tribunal Service (HMCTS), tweeted on Tuesday evening: “update on the issues across MoJ systems that have been affecting courts & what is being done to fix them. I’m hugely grateful to HMCTS staff, professional users & others who’ve worked so hard to keep courts working through the problems – very sorry it was necessary.”

longer statement on the MoJ’s website apologised to those who had been affected, admitting: “We know this is unacceptable and how deeply frustrating this has been for our staff and users.”

The department said access had been restored to “a large number of Ministry of Justice sites” and that the main suppliers of the affected technology, including Atos and Microsoft, were “working hard to restore access for the remaining sites and users”.

The MoJ denied that the disruption was due to a cyber-attack and insisted that there had been no loss of data.

Richard Atkins QC, the chair of the Bar Council, which represents barristers in England and Wales, said: “I have no doubt that the Ministry of Justice and

HMCTS are doing all that they can to rectify this major problem, but it illustrates how vulnerable the delivery of justice is with reliance on weak IT systems in our courts.

“Whilst HMCTS is moving forward with its programme of online justice, these problems would suggest that more investment in the basics is needed first. We cannot have a justice system that comes to a shuddering halt the moment the IT does not work properly.”

Chris Henley QC, the chair of the Criminal Bar Association, told the Law Society Gazette: “Short-term savings often result in wider costs to the public purse and cause a broken criminal justice system to fall further apart. Crumbling court buildings are bad enough for court users – both the public and criminal practitioners – but digital failures can have far more profound

consequences for all those awaiting trial.

“Prolonged IT failures do a disservice to the victims of crime and their families who may have already suffered the costs of delays from an already overstretched, chronically underfunded, broken criminal justice system.”

The Secret Barrister, an influential legal commentator on the state of the courts, tweeted: “The entire digital infrastructure of the courts has been broken for days. Phones aren’t working, court computers are offline, email is down. Imagine the headlines if it were the NHS. But it’s only justice, so no one cares. No accountability, no lessons learned.”

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Jan 2019

First ever cross-government

The plan for reducing deaths from suicide in England has a focus on how social media and the latest technology can identify those most at risk.

The government has published the first cross-government suicide prevention plan. The plan has a focus on how social media and the latest technology – such as predictive analytics and artificial intelligence – can identify those at risk of suicide.

The plan will be led by the Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Jackie Doyle-Price. It sets out actions for local government, the NHS and the criminal justice system.

The plan commits the government to improving data held on causes of death among veterans to better understand the triggers that can lead someone to take their own life, such as debt and gambling addiction.

It also includes greater focus on addressing the increase in suicide and self-harm among young people, while social media companies will be asked to take more responsibility for online content that promotes methods of suicide and self-harm.

Other parts of the plan include:

every local authority putting an effective suicide prevention plan in place
ensuring every mental health trust has a zero-suicide ambition plan for mental health inpatients by the end of 2019
every prison putting actions in place to reduce suicides and self-harm and improve staff awareness and training
addressing the specific needs of the highest risk groups, including middle-aged men, with £25 million funding
improving research on things that can be linked to suicide, such as debt and gambling addiction

There are 4,500 suicides each year in England, and around 13 people end their life every day. Men are 3 times more likely to die by suicide than women, and suicide is the leading cause of death in men under 50. Suicide is also a leading cause of death in young people.

The Prime Minister appointed Jackie Doyle-Price as the UK’s first Suicide Prevention Minister in October 2018. Part of her role is to work across local and national government to carry out the national suicide prevention strategy, published in 2012.

The cross-government suicide prevention plan published in January 2019 supports the national suicide prevention strategy, following recommendations from the Health Select Committee’s inquiry into suicide prevention in 2016.

Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Jackie Doyle-Price said:

As a society we need to do everything we can to support vulnerable and at-risk people, as well as those in crisis, and give them the help they desperately need.

I will be working with local councils, the NHS and the justice system to make sure suicide prevention plans are put in place across public services.

Together, we will do everything in our power to meet our ambition to reduce suicides by at least 10% by 2020 – and I look forward to working collaboratively with social media and tech companies to help achieve our ambitions.

Samaritans CEO Ruth Sutherland said:

We welcome the publication of the workplan and hope it will help save more lives.

Every 6 seconds someone contacts Samaritans volunteers for support, so we know that there is a huge amount to be done to help those struggling to cope.

When we can work in partnership, we can make a bigger impact in preventing suicide, particularly among the hardest to reach high-risk groups such as low-income and middle-aged men, and those whose occupation puts them at higher risk. Working to address inequalities in suicide is key.

We also need more research into the increases in self-harm and suicide among young people, and why gambling addiction and debt can drive suicides. Improving suicide data is essential to help us put more effective suicide prevention in place.

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Theresa May considering scrapping Human Rights Act following Brexit

January 2019

Rory Stewart OBE MP
Under Secretary of State for Prisons and Probation,
Rehabilitation and Sentencing
Ministry of Justice
102 Petty France
London SW1H 9AJ

Dear Minister of State

The Rt Hon David Gauke MP
Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
102 Petty France
London SW1 9AJ

Dear Secretary of State

We write to express our collective concern regarding the proposal to re-let the Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) contracts.

Even without making any presuppositions about the long-term future and viability of these contracts, we are very concerned over the short time frame that the government proposes during which it is intended to re-align and re-let these undertakings.

he prime minister is to consider repealing the Human Rights Act after Brexit, despite promising she is “committed” to its protections, a minister has revealed. This is, after all, a government that has always tended to regard the human rights of some social groups as nothing more than a bureaucratic inconvenience. Many of us have been very concerned about the implications of Brexit for human rights in the UK.

The House of Lords EU Justice Sub-Committee has exchanged correspondence with the Government about clarifying the wording of the Political Declaration regarding the European Convention on Human Rights.

There is no justification for editing or repealing the Human Rights Act itself, that would make Britain the first European country to regress in the level and degree of our human rights protection. It is through times of recession and times of affluence alike that our rights ought to be the foundation of our society, upon which the Magna Carta, the Equality Act and the Human Rights Act were built – protecting the most vulnerable citizens from the powerful and ensuring those who govern are accountable to the rule of law.

Observation of human rights distinguishes democratic leaders from dictators and despots. Human Rights are the bedrock of our democracy, they are universal, and are a reflection of a society’s and a governments’ recognition of the equal worth of every citizens’ life.

Nonetheless, the government will decide on the future of the landmark legislation once “the process of leaving the EU concludes”, according to a letter submitted to a parliamentary inquiry.

This disclosure comes despite the Brexit white paper stating last year that the UK would remain in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), after following a warning from the European Union (EU) that pulling out would jeopardise a future security deal. However, the prime minister has previously pledged to leave the ECHR, expressing frustration because there was no Commons majority for doing so.

It is in this context of previous statements of intent that the wording of the letter was described as “troubling” by the Lords EU Justice Sub-Committee, which has warned that the letter casts doubt on more recent, repeated pledges from the government to protect the ECHR.

“Is the government sincere in its commitment to the ECHR?”, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws, the committee’s chair, asked.

“If so, why has it failed to give assurances that it will not repeal or reform the Human Rights Act, which in essence incorporates the rights set out in the ECHR into domestic British law?”

The committee wrote to the Ministry of Justice after the alarm was raised by the wording of the political declaration, which was agreed with the EU in December alongside the legally binding divorce deal.

The declaration said the UK would merely agree “to respect the framework of the European Convention on Human Rights” – dropping the previous pledge of being “committed” to it. Previous plans to replace the Human Rights Act with a ‘British Bill of Rights’ appeared in the 2010 Programme for Government, and in the Conservative manifesto in 2015. included an emphasis on interpreting rights more subjectively, rather than regarding them as ‘absolute’.

In response, Edward Argar, a junior justice minister, wrote: “The difference in wording does not represent a change in the UK’s position on the ECHR

“A central tenet of our future relationship with the EU is our mutual belief in the importance of human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

But he went on to suggest that the Human Rights Act may be scrapped when Brexit is concluded.

He wrote: “Our manifesto committed to not repealing or replacing the Human Rights Act while the process of EU exit is underway.”

“It is right that we wait until the process of leaving the EU concludes before considering the matter further in the full knowledge of the new constitutional landscape.

Many Conservatives are critical of Labour’s Human Rights Act, claiming it gives “too many rights to criminals” and some have even claimed it undermines “personal responsibility.”

However, in 2015 Amnesty UK commissioned a poll that indicated the British public are not particularly willing to see any change to existing Human Rights legislation, with only one in 10 people in the UK (11%) believing that scrapping the Human Rights Act should be a government aim.

It’s extremely worrying that a government thinks it should pick and choose which rights we are entitled to and select who they deem worthy of them. The whole point of rights and protections is that they are universal: they must apply to everyone equally in order to work at all.

It took people in the UK a very long time to claim the rights we have and we mustn’t let the Conservatives take them away with the stroke of a pen.

The peers said it would imperil human rights if the government “intend to break the formal link” between the UK courts and the EHCR.

Baroness Kennedy said: “Again and again we are told that the government is committed to the European Convention on Human Rights, but without a concrete commitment, and with messaging that is changing and becoming diluted.”

The government have played a long game, however, and have almost certainly always intended to repeal the Human Rights Act. One issue that prevented that happening over the last few years is the Good Friday Agreement, as the Labour government also committed to incorporate the European Convention of Human ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and to the establishment of a Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission.

The politics of regression

In 2015, wrote about how the government has quietly edited the ministerial code, which was updated on October 15 without any announcement at all. The code sets out the standard of conduct expected of ministers. The latest version of the code is missing a key element regarding complicity with international law.

The previous code, issued in 2010, said there was an “overarching duty on ministers to comply with the law including international law and treaty obligations and to uphold the administration of justice and to protect the integrity of public life”.

The new version of the code has been edited to say only that there is an“overarching duty on ministers to comply with the law and to protect the integrity of public life”.

A Conservative party policy document had revealed that the ministerial code will be rewritten in the context of the UK withdrawing from the European convention on human rights. In order to help achieve these aims the document says: “We will amend the ministerial code to remove any ambiguity in the current rules about the duty of ministers to follow the will of Parliament in the UK.”

In the original Conservative proposals to scrap our existing human rights framework, and replace it with their own, one sentence from the misleadingly titled document –Protecting Human Rights in the UK, (found on page 6 ) – is particularly chilling: “There will be a threshold below which Convention rights will not be engaged.”

Basically this means that human rights will no longer be absolute or universally applied – they will be subject to state stipulations and caveats. And discrimination. The government will establish a threshold below which Convention rights will not be engaged, allowing UK courts to strike out what are deemed trivial cases.

The Conservatives’ motivation for changing our human rights legislation is to allow reinterpretations to work around the new legislation when they deem it necessary. The internationally agreed rights that the Conservatives have always seen as being open to interpretation will become considerably prone to ideological bias, prejudice and open to subjective challenge.

Breaking the formal link between the European Court of Human Rights and British law would mean any judgement from Europe would be treated as “advisory” only, rather than legally binding, and would need to be “approved” by parliament. Such a Bill would profoundly disempower citizens because it will shift the balance of democracy completely, placing power almost entirely in the hands of the state.

Whatever constitutional or political configurations emerge following Brexit, the present threat to rights and equality is a major threat to citizens’ liberties and freedoms. It demands coherent and collective action in the public interest.

A strong case for the Human Rights Act

The government’s shameful lack of progress on disability rights in the UK. I discussed the details of a new report and the recommendations made by the UK Independent Mechanism update report to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

his is a summary of some key concerns that I only touched on in my original write up, and it also focuses on one of the important themes that emerged in the report: the potential impact of Brexit on disabled people’s rights.

The new report and submission to the UNCRPD – UK Independent Mechanism update report to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (published October 2018) – provides an independent assessment of the UK Independent Mechanism (UKIM) on the “disappointing” lack of progress by the UK governments to implement the UN’s recommendations since August 2017.

A year on, there is still no comprehensive UK-wide strategy demonstrating how the UK will implement the CRPD Committee’s recommendations. There has also been “continued reluctance” from the UK Government to accept the conclusions of the CRPD Committee’s inquiry report on the impact of the UK Government’s policies on the rights of disabled people.

Disabled people across the UK continue to face serious regression of their rights to an adequate standard of living and social protection, to live independently and to be included in the community. UKIM has reiterated that the grave and systematic violations identified by the CRPD Committee need to be addressed as a matter of urgency and that the overall approach of the UK Government towards social security protection requires a complete overhaul, so that it is informed by human rights frameworks, standards and principles, to ensure disabled people’s rights are respected, protected and fulfilled.

Despite the empirical evidence presented from a variety of researchers and the UN investigation concerning the significantly adverse effect of welfare reform on disabled people’s rights to independent living and to an adequate standard of living and social security, the UK Government has failed to act on this evidence and to implement the CRPD Committee’s recommendations regarding these rights.

The authors of the report remain seriously concerned about the continued failure of the UK Government to conduct an assessment of the cumulative impact on disabled people of multiple policy, cuts and law reforms in relation to living standards and social security.

In the section about prejudice and negative attitudes, the report also cites a shameful example of rhetoric from the government that has potentially reinforced negative attitudes and the stigma surrounding mental health and disability:

“This includes the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, stating before a Committee of the UK Parliament: ‘It is almost certainly the case that by increasing participation in the workforce, including far higher levels of participation by marginal groups and very high levels of engagement in the workforce, for example of disabled people – something we should be extremely proud of – may have had an impact on overall productivity measurements.’

Many people understood this statement as indicating that the increase in disabled people in employment is partly responsible for the UK’s decreasing productivity.”

The report also says that employment rates for disabled people have actually risen only very marginally.

Conservative prejudice is embedded in social security policy and administration

The UKIM report says that government has not taken appropriate measures to combat negative and discriminatory stereotypes or prejudice against persons with disabilities in public and the media, including the government’s own claims that ‘dependency’ on benefits is in itself a disincentive of employment. This is important because it shows just how embedded Conservative prejudice is in policies and within our social security administration.

The idea that welfare somehow creates the problems it was designed to alleviate, such as poverty and inequality, has become almost ‘common sense’ and because of that, it’s a narrative that remains largely unchallenged. Yet international research has shown that generous welfare provision leads to more, better quality and sustainable employment.

Moreover, this ideological position has been used politically as a justification to reduce social security provision so that it is no longer an adequate amount to meet citizens’ basic living needs. The aim is to discredit the welfare system itself, along with those needing its support. The government have long wished to replace the publicly funded social security provision ultimately with mandatory private insurance schemes.

The idea that welfare creates ‘dependency’ and ‘disincentivises’ work has been used as a justification for the introduction of cuts and an extremely punitive regime entailing ‘conditionality’ and sanctions. The governenment have selectively used punitive behavioural modification elements of behavioural economics theory and its discredited behaviourist language of ‘incentives’ to steadily withdraw publicly funded social security provision.

However, most of the public have already contributed to social security, those needing support tend to move in and out of work. Very few people remain out of work on a permanent basis. The Conservatives have created a corrosive and divisive myth that there are two discrete groups in society:

tax payers and ‘scroungers’ – a class of economic free riders. This of course is not true, since people claiming welfare support also pay taxes, such as VAT and council tax, and most have already worked and will work again, given the opportunity to do so. For those who are too ill to work, as a so-called civilise society, we should not hesitate to support them.

In the recommendations, the authors say the government should implement broad mass media campaigns, in consultation with organisations representing persons with disabilities, particularly those affected by the welfare reform, to promote them as full rights holders, in accordance with the Convention; and adopt measures to address complaints of harassment and hate crime by persons with disabilities, promptly investigate those allegations, hold the perpetrators accountable and provide fair and appropriate compensation to victims.

As a society we take tend to take human rights for granted. We seldom think about rights because much of the time, there is no need to. It’s not until we directly experience discrimination and oppression that we recognise the value of having a universal human rights framework. Our rights define the relationship between citizen and state, and ensure that there is no abuse of power. However, we no longer have equal access to justice and redress for human rights breaches and discrimination.

The high demand for advice on disability benefits since the government’s welfare reform means that the almost complete removal of welfare benefits from the scope of legal aid has had a disproportionate impact on disabled people or those with a long-term health condition.

People entitled to disability benefits relied on legal aid to support appeals of incorrect decisions and to provide a valuable check on decision-making concerning eligibility for welfare support. The revisions to the financial eligibility criteria for legal aid have had a disproportionate impact on various groups including disabled people, women, children and migrants. This is because of the restrictions that the government placed on legal aid accessibility with the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO).

There has been a 99% decrease in support provided by the Legal Aid Agency for clients with disability-related welfare benefits issues, compared with pre-LASPO levels, and the total number of such claims has plummeted from 29,801 in 2011/12 to 308 in 2016/17.

The government has failed to ensure access to justice, removing appropriate legal advice and support, including through reasonable and procedural accommodation for disabled people seeking redress and reparation for the violation of their rights, as covered in the report.

It’s difficult to imagine that this wasn’t a coordinated effort on the part of the government to restrict citizen freedoms, support and access to justice for precisely those who need justice and remedies the most.

Human rights don’t often seem as though they matter, until they do. But by then, it may be too late.

Concerns about the impact of Brexit on the human rights of disabled people

In 2016, I wrote an article about concerns raised regarding the rights of disabled people following Brexit. Earlier this year, I wrote another article about my concerns that the European fundamental rights charter was excluded in the European Union (EU) withdrawal Bill, including protection from eugenic policy.

The result of the EU referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union, and forthcoming withdrawal, carries some obvious and very worrying implications for the protection of citizens rights and freedoms in the UK. Historically the UK Conservative government has strongly opposed much of Europe’s social rights agenda.

So it was very concerning that the House of Commons voted down a Labour amendment to ensure that our basic human rights are protected after Brexit, as set out in the European Union Charter.

The EU Withdrawal Bill threatened to significantly reduce existing human rights protections. It excluded both the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (in its entirety) and the right of action for violations of EU General Principles from domestic law after the UK’s withdrawal. It also handed sweeping powers to ministers to alter legislation without appropriate parliamentary scrutiny, placing current rights and equality laws at risk.

Worryingly, Suella Fernandes, who was promoted to the Brexit department earlier this year warned in November last year that transposing the ‘flabby’ charter into British law would give UK citizens additional protections on issues such as “biomedicine, eugenics, personal data and collective bargaining.”

However, the very fact that anyone at all in government objects to retaining these fundamental rights and protections indicates that we do very clearly need them.

It should be inconceivable that a democratic legislature would vote to take away citizens rights. The regressive step means the loss of the Charter goes rights that simply don’t exist in the Human Rights Act or in our common law.

Gone is the enforceable right to human dignity. Gone are our rights to data protection, comprehensive protection for the rights of the child, a free-standing right to non-discrimination, protection of a child’s best interests and the right to human dignity, refugee rights, the right to conscientious objection, academic freedom and wide-ranging fair trial rights to name but a few. Then there are the losses of economic and social rights. Gone too, are the right to a private life, freedom of speech, equality provisions and employment rights governing how workers are treated. These are all laws that protect us all from abuses of power.

A group of more than 20 organisations and human rights legal experts, including the Equality and Human Rights Commission, signed an open letter on the importance of the Charter of Fundamental Rights ahead of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill returning to Parliament on 16 January this year. The letter was published in the Observer.

Trevor Tayleur, an associate professor at the University of Law, explained that the charter, although narrower in focus than the Human Rights Act, offers a far more robust defence of fundamental rights.

“At present, the main means of protecting human rights in the UK is the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) ,” he said. “This incorporates the bulk of the rights and freedoms enshrined in the European convention on human rights into UK law and thereby enables individuals to enforce their convention rights in the UK courts. However, there is a significant limitation to the protection afforded by the HRA because it does not override acts of parliament.

“In contrast, the protection afforded by the EU charter of fundamental rights is much stronger because where there is a conflict between basic rights contained in the charter and an act of the Westminster parliament, the charter will prevail over the act.”

Under the HRA, only an individual who is a “victim” of a rights violation can bring a claim, whereas anyone with “sufficient interest” can apply for judicial review based on the Charter (see this briefing at p 11)

In their report, UKIM say: “There are fears that the significant uncertainty in relation to Brexit will lead to a further deterioration of disabled people’s rights.

“The lack of a devolved government in Northern Ireland is also a specific concern to that jurisdiction, because it is significantly inhibiting the relevant departments from taking the required steps. Without a clear and coordinated plan for how the UK and devolved governments will address the UN recommendations systematically, the limited steps taken so far are unlikely to be enough to address the concerns raised by the CRPD Committee.”

The report goes on to say: “Following the European Union (EU) referendum in June 2016, there continues to be significant uncertainty regarding the future applicability of existing human rights protections in the UK that derive from EU law. The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights was excluded from the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, meaning that from ‘exit day’ it will no longer apply in domestic law.

“As a result, domestic protections are more vulnerable to repeal. The Charter goes further than the non-discrimination provisions in the Equality Act 2010 or the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Article 26 of the Charter, in particular, is a useful interpretive tool to support disabled people’s right to independence and integration and participation in the community.

The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 also leaves human rights protections at risk of being changed through the use of wide-ranging delegated powers. This means that changes to fundamental rights currently protected by EU law can be made by ministers through secondary legislation [statutory instruments, usually reserved for ‘non-controversial policy amendments] without being subject to full parliamentary scrutiny.

The EU is itself a party to the CRPD. Under EU law, international treaties to which the EU is party have a different status than they do under UK law. For example, EU law (unlike UK law) must be interpreted consistently with the CRPD. To ensure there is no regression, and that disabled people in the UK benefit from future progress driven by the CRPD, the UK Government should ensure these protections are incorporated into UK law, for example by giving enhanced status to the CRPD.

The Conservatives have used secondary legslation to try and quietly push through several very controversial policies over recent years, such as £4bn-worth of cuts to family tax credits, and the removal of maintenance grants from around half a million of the poorest students in England. The changes mainly hit disabled, ethnic minority and older students.

The government have introduced swathes of significant new laws covering everything from fracking to fox hunting and benefit cuts without debate and scrutiny on the floor of the House of Commons. Many of these policies were not included in the Conservatives’ election manifesto and were nodded through by obscure Commons committees without the substance of the change being debated.

Image result for use of statutory instruments kittysjones

After the House of Lords successfully challenged the tax credit instrument, the Government then proposed limiting peers rights to reject statutory instruments. This would mean if one was rejected by the Lords, the ministers would simply have to retable it and it would pass automatically. All of this should be seen alongside other Conservative proposals – including limits on freedom of information, changes to constituency boundaries and electoral registration, attempts to choke the opposition of funding within the Trade Union Bill, and the Lobbying Act.

In light of this repressive pattern of behaviour, you could be forgiven for thinking that we’ve entered the realms of constitutional gerrymandering, with an authoritarian executive waging war on the institutions that hold them to account. With its fear of opposition and loathing of challenge, the government wants to stifle debate, shut down opposition and block proper scruting and democratic accountability.

It is within this authoritarian political context that many of us have raised concerns about the impact of Brexit on the human rights of disabled citizens.

I’m always concerned that language use sometimes reinforces prejudices against disabled people by focusing on us as a group as ‘vulnerable’ and as ‘those in need’, as opposed to citizens and rights holders. However, grave and systematic violations of disabled peoples’ human right inevitably increases our vulnerability to further political abuse.

The Yogyakarta Principles, one of the international human rights instruments use the term “vulnerability” as such potential to abuse and/or social and economic exclusion. Social vulnerability is created through the interaction of social forces and multiple “stressors”, and resolved through social (as opposed to individual) means.

Social vulnerability is the product of social inequalities. It arises through social, cultural, political and economic processes.

While some individuals within a socially vulnerable context may break free from the hierarchical order, social vulnerability itself persists because of structural – social, cultural economical and political – influences that continue to reinforce vulnerability. Some campaigners are very critical of the use of the word ‘vulnerability’, because they feel it leads to attitudes and perceptions of disabled people as passive victims.

Since 2010, no social group has organised, campaigned and protested more than disabled people. Many of us have lived through harrowing times under this government and the last, when our very existence has become so precarious because of targeted and cruel Conservative policies and disproportionate cuts to our lifeline support. Yet we have remained strong.in our resolve. Despite this, some of our dear friends and comrades have been tragically lost – they have not survived, yet many of them were very strong in their resolve to challenge discrimination and oppression.

In one of the wealthiest democratic nations on earth, no group of people should have to fight for their survival. Vulnerability is rather more about the potential for some social groups being subjected to political abuse than it is about individual qualities. Disabled people currently are and have been. This is empirically verified by the report and conclusions drawn from the United Nations inquiry into the grave and systematic violations of disabled people’s human rights here in the UK, by a so-called democratic government.

The government’s ‘paternalism’ is authoritarian gaslighting

Over recent years, Conservative policies have become increasingly ‘paternalist’, also reflecting the authoritarian turn, in that they are designed to act upon us, to ‘change’ our behaviours through the use of negative reinforcement (‘incentives’), while we are completely excluded from policy design and aims. Our behaviours are being aligned with neoliberal outcomes, conflating our needs and interests with the private financial profit of the powerful.

As one of the instigators of the United Nations investigation, to which I regularly submitted evidence regarding the government’s systematic violations of the human rights of disabled people, and as a person with disability, I don’t care for being described by Damian Green as “patronising” or being told that disabled people – the witnesses of the investigation – presented an “outdated view” of disability in the UK. This is a government minister attempting to discredit and re-write our accounts and experiences while ignoring the empirical evidence we have presented. Such actions are profoundly oppressive.

The only opportunity disabled people have been presented with to effectively express our fears, experiences and concerns about increasingly punitive and discriminatory policies, to voice a democratic opinion more generally and to be heard, has been in dialogue with an international human rights organisation, and still this government refuse to hear what we have to say. Nor are we consulted with, democratically included or invited to participate in the executive’s decision-making that directly affects us. As UKIM note:

“There is a continued lack of action from the UK and devolved governments on the CRPD Committee’s recommendations. This includes setting up systems that will ensure that disabled people and their organisations are involved in the design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of legislation, policy or programmes that affect their lives. It remains unclear how the new Inter-Ministerial Group on Disability and Society will work with disabled people and their organisations, and UKIM, to promote and monitor implementation of UN CRPD.

“It is particularly concerning that the UN CRPD’s requirement to effectively involve disabled people and their organisations is not specifically reflected in the inter-ministerial group’s terms of reference. Nor do the terms of reference refer to the CRPD or the CRPD Committee’s recommendations.”

Oppression always involves the objectification of those being dominated; all forms of oppression imply the devaluation of the subjectivity and experiences of the oppressed.

This is very evident in the government’s approach to designing policies that act upon us. The government has consistently failed to actively consult, engage with and include disabled people, our representative organisations and give due consideration to our views in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of any legislation, policy or programme action related to our rights. Furthermore, the current Minister of State for Disabled People, Health and Work, Sarah Newton, has refused to meet with disabled people and allied organisations. (See also I’m a disabled person and Sarah Newton is an outrageous, gaslighting liar.)

Last year, Theresia Degener, who leads the UN’s Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), said the UK Government has “totally neglected” disabled people, during a two day meeting with UK government officials in Geneva.

Degener told them: “Evidence before us now and in our inquiry procedure as published in our 2016 report reveals that social cut policies have led to a human catastrophe in your country, totally neglecting the vulnerable situation people with disabilities find themselves in.”

The Government’s welfare cuts have resulted in “grave and systematic violations” of the rights of disabled people – a claim opposed by ministers but supported by UK courts.

For example, Judges have ruled that three of the government’s flagship welfare policies are illegal because of the impact they have on disabled people and single parents. In January 2016, the Court of Appeal declared the so-called ‘bedroom tax’ unlawful because of its consequences for disabled children, as well as victims of domestic violence.

Sanctions imposed on people who refused to or could not take part in the Department for Work and Pension’s ‘back to work’ schemes were also thrown out by Court of Appeal judges in April 2016. In June 2017 the High Court said the government’s benefit cap is unlawful and causes “real misery for no good purpose”. This year, a High Court ruling found that the Personal Independence Payments (PIP) policy had discriminated against people with mental health conditions.

Between 2011 and 2017 the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) underpaid more than £450,000,000 in means-tested benefits, due to its mishandling of the process by which claimants were moved from incapacity benefit to employment and support allowance.

When announcing its plans to remedy those underpayments on 14th December 2017, the DWP claimed the law ‘barred’ it from paying claimants any underpayments arising before 21st October 2014. That would have had two serious effects: first, up to £150,000,000 of the underpaid benefit would have been kept by the Government instead of passed to citizens who were deprived of it through no fault of their own; and second, any arrears which were paid to disabled people could after 52 weeks have been treated as ‘capital’, and reduced or stopped their ongoing entitlement to benefit.

In March 2018 the Child Poverty Action Group, acting for one affected claimant, brought judicial review proceedings in R (Smith) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions JR/1249/2018 arguing that the DWP’s position was unlawful.

The DWP accepted that it ‘got the law wrong’. The DWP said it will now start making those payments. It was necessary to take legal action against the Government because it said it had no legal power to fully remedy the consequences of a major error it had made in transferring claimants from incapacity benefit to employment and support allowance.

Ministers have also accused by the UN of misleading the public about the impact of Government policies by refusing to answer questions and using statistics in an “unclear way.”

A teacher was reportedly fired after CCTV footage showed her dragging a screaming 9-year-old autistic boy across the floor when he refused to walk.

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/11/teacher-fired-breaking-autistic-boys-arm-dragging-along-floor-8335792/?ito=social&fbclid=IwAR2btpEKXSaJ-Gx3TC0amn7DdoJQb91NSAsmtOmovPAzQ-atxYzcrYKsxo0?ito=cbshare
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

Gaslighting.

The CRPD Committee has requested that the State party (the government) disseminate the concluding observations of their inquiry widely, including to non-governmental organisations and organisations of persons with disabilities, and to disabled people themselves and members of their families, in national and minority languages, including sign language, and in accessible formats, including Easy Read, and to make them available on the government website on human rights.

That hasn’t happened and is unlikely to do so in the future. So please do share this article, The government’s shameful lack of progress on disability rights in the UK – new report update and submission to the UNCRPD Committee, and the UKIM update and shadow report widely.

A teacher was reportedly fired after CCTV footage showed her dragging a screaming 9-year-old autistic boy across the floor when he refused to walk. In the footage, Trina Abrams can be seen marching down a corridor of Wurtland Elementary School, in Kentucky, while pulling the youngster along by his hand. His mother Angel Nelson, who shared the clip on social media, claims that her son was left with a fractured wrist as a result of what happened.

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/11/teacher-fired-breaking-autistic-boys-arm-dragging-along-floor-8335792/?ito=social&fbclid=IwAR2btpEKXSaJ-Gx3TC0amn7DdoJQb91NSAsmtOmovPAzQ-atxYzcrYKsxo0?ito=cbshare
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

Remind Theresa May why human rights is important, its not just about saving money its about defending vulnerable people who cant defend the self. The vulnerable don't even have enough disability solicitors or schools there rights are a constant battle for there family.

A teacher was reportedly fired after CCTV footage showed her dragging a screaming 9-year-old autistic boy across the floor when he refused to walk.

In the footage, Trina Abrams can be seen marching down a corridor of Wurtland Elementary School, , while pulling the youngster along by his hand.

The little boy suffers from numerous diagnoses including autism, ADHD, and PTSD.

https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/11/teacher-fired-breaking-autistic-boys-arm-dragging-along-floor-8335792/?ito=social&fbclid=IwAR2btpEKXSaJ-Gx3TC0amn7DdoJQb91NSAsmtOmovPAzQ-atxYzcrYKsxo0

The little boy suffers from numerous diagnoses including autism, ADHD, and PTSD.

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/11/teacher-fired-breaking-autistic-boys-arm-dragging-along-floor-8335792/?ito=social&fbclid=IwAR2btpEKXSaJ-Gx3TC0amn7DdoJQb91NSAsmtOmovPAzQ-atxYzcrYKsxo0?ito=cbshare
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

In the footage, Trina Abrams can be seen marching down a corridor of Wurtland Elementary School, in Kentucky, while pulling the youngster along by his hand.

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/11/teacher-fired-breaking-autistic-boys-arm-dragging-along-floor-8335792/?ito=social&fbclid=IwAR2btpEKXSaJ-Gx3TC0amn7DdoJQb91NSAsmtOmovPAzQ-atxYzcrYKsxo0?ito=cbshare
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

A teacher was reportedly fired after CCTV footage showed her dragging a screaming 9-year-old autistic boy across the floor when he refused to walk.

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/11/teacher-fired-breaking-autistic-boys-arm-dragging-along-floor-8335792/?ito=social&fbclid=IwAR2btpEKXSaJ-Gx3TC0amn7DdoJQb91NSAsmtOmovPAzQ-atxYzcrYKsxo0?ito=cbshare
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/