The UK Government will announce plans to reform the Human Rights Act in the Queen’s Speech today, 10 May, which marks the state opening of Parliament.
The Act, which was passed in 1998, will be replaced with a British Bill of Rights, which will seek to address what the Government sees as a ‘democratic deficit’ and shift power back to Parliament, and away from the courts.
So why has the UK Government launched an attack on the Human Rights Act? Could its promise to single out and champion freedom of expression be a welcome opportunity for rights advocates and the media? Or is freedom of expression a hostage in the culture wars?
In this podcast, originally recorded on 6 April, Jo Glanville talks to ARTICLE 19 Executive Director Quinn McKew, Jun Pang, Policy and Campaigns Officer at Liberty, and Lizzie Greene, Group Legal Advisor at Associated Newspapers.
You can also listen to this podcast and review it on Google Podcasts, Spotify and Apple Podcasts
This is part of the Boundaries of Expression podcast series. Developed by guest editors, the series explores the limits and challenges to freedom of expression and focuses on some of the most controversial and divisive issues of our time.
Read the accompanying essay by Jo Glanville, Are some rights more equal than others?
More Boundaries of Expression:
Why the right to truth matters and Why the right to protest matters
Plus: Listen to ARTICLE 19’s Boundaries of Expression podcasts, presented and written by Jo Glanville
Jo Glanville is a journalist and editor. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, London Review of Books and the Observer, among other publications. She is editor of Looking For An Enemy: eight essays on antisemitism (Short Books, UK; WW Norton, US, August 2022).