A Bill of Rights
Sir: May I correct a grave error of fact in your footnote to Mr Silkin's letter (24 January)?
Her Majesty's Government in the UK has signed and Parliament has ratified the Council of Europe's Convention on Human Rights. There is, therefore, no question of anyone over- riding any Act of Parliament by a petition to Strasbourg. The question is of • making this adherence effective by bringing the convention within the scope of our domestic law. Without this the British signature and ratification are not only hypocritical but plain dishonest.
It is, therefore, your comment only that is Irrelevant. Our proposals, if put into practice, would first protect Britain's good name against the parrot-cry of perfidious Albion and second would enable justice to be done and be seen to be done 'within these shores.' The alternative is to parade our major or minor peccadillos in this field in the Council of Europe Secretariat or even before the European Commission and the European Court of Human Rights in the, to me inconceivable, event of out' failure to act with justice on our own.
What we are advocating is the machinery to achieve the Bill of Rights you propose and it is most improper of you, sir, both in your earlier article and now in your footnote to appear to be trying to make party capital out of this. We are all, party politicians or not, on the same side against infringements of human rights and must work together. May we count on your support?
John Alexander-Sinclair Chairman, Human Rights Institute Working Group of tx Committee for Human Rights Year and Hon Campaign Director, Human Rights Year; The Athenaeum, Pall Mall, SW1
Mr Alexander-Sinclair accuses us of 'a grave error of fact': yet fails to mention either the 'error' or the 'fact.' He considers our com- ment that what matters is the domestic law of England, rather than ratification of the Euro- pean Convention on Human Rights, to be 'irrelevant': yet he apparently emphasises this very point himself. He accuses us of 'trying to make party capital': yet fails to mention that in our leading article of 10 January (to which he alludes) we explicitly stated that 'The burgeoning movement in support of a new Bill of Rights is not the monopoly of any one political party.'--Editor. SPECTATOR.
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