THE HUMAN RIGHTS BILL WILL NOT CAUSE A FLOOD OF LAW SUITS, SAYS GEOFFREY BINDMAN, CALLING FOR THE CREATION OF A NEW COMMISSIONIncorporation of the European Human Rights Convention into domestic law was an election pledge which the government is implementing in the Human Rights Bill.

It has progressed speedily through Parliament since its first publication attached to a government white paper, 'Rights Brought Home' on 24 October 1997.

This in turn repeats the proposals outlined in a consultation paper, 'Bringing Rights Home' published by Jack Straw MP, then Shadow Home Secretary, and Paul Boateng MP in December 1996.The Bill has completed its committee stages in both the Lords and the Commons.

The final report stage will take place in the Commons on 21 October 1998 and thereafter the Bill will become law.

However, it is not expected to be brought into effect until the year 2000.It is hardly surprising, given the huge government majority, that few changes have been made to the Bill during its passage.

Its structure remains intact.Part of the background to the Bill is the government's commitment to a comprehensive programme of constitutional reform.

Distinct elements of this programme, enumerated by the Prime Minister in his preface to 'Rights Brought Home', include devolution for Scotland and Wales; an elected mayor for London and other local government reform; freedom of information; a referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons, and reform of the House of Lords.

Of this disparate package incorporation of the Convention could, as the precursor of an entrenched Bill of Rights, have the greatest long-term significance.The practical impact of incorporation, as defined in the Human Rights Bill, is uncertain.

At the simplest level, incorporating the convention into domestic law need create no new rights at all.

The UK is already bound by the convention and individuals can assert their rights under it by petition to Strasbourg.

The government has rejected all attempts to extend or vary Convention rights in the Bill, for example, by adding the right to equal protection of the law and freedom from discrimination embodied in Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

At this level, the only effect of incorporation would be to save the claimant the long journey to Strasbourg by providing in the domestic courts the remedies which are now only available there.There is, however, a wider agenda: to create a 'human rights culture' in which, to use Tony Blair's words, 'awareness of human rights will be enhanced in our society'.

The intention is that ordinary members of the public will develop a new perception of themselves as the confident possessors of inviolable fundamental rights, protected by the courts against any encroachment under whatever authority.The rights are those set out in articles 2 to 18 of the convention, namely: the right to life; the right not to be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; the right not to be held in slavery or forced servitude not to be required to perform forced or compulsory labour; the right to liberty and security of person save in specified cases (such as detention on conviction or reasonable suspicion of having committed an offence) and in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law; the right to a fair hearing of any criminal charge; the right not to be convicted for what was not unlawful at the time of its commission; the right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence; the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, the right to freedom of expression; the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association with others; the right to marry and found a family for those of marriageable age.There is no right to equality or freedom from discrimination but it is provided that the rights and freedoms secured by the Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.The right of any individual to proceed to Strasbourg to challenge any claimed violation remains, but the European Commission of Human Rights exercised a discretion in deciding whether to entertain a complaint.

It normally requires the exhaustion of local remedies before agreeing to do so.

The effect of the Human Rights Act will be to extend the availability of a local remedy.Although the convention is not now part of domestic law, it can be relied on to resolve ambiguities in statute law.

Where alternative interpretations of a statutory provision are possible the court will prefer one which is consistent with the convention over one which is not.

Furthermore, the courts are prepared to allow Strasbourg case law to be cited and will treat it as persuasive when interpreting the common law.The Bill affirms this position.

Legislation will have to be interpreted as far as possible so that it is compatible with the convention.

If this cannot be done, the court cannot override it; it can merely make a 'declaration of incompatibility'.

Parliamentary sovereignty survives.

Following a declaration of incompatibility, however, an expedited procedure is introduced to enable the relevant minister to amend legislation to make it compatible, subject to parliamentary objection within a limited period.Public authorities -- a term which will be widely interpreted and will include the courts themselves -- must comply with the convention unless compelled by statute to do otherwise.

The victim of any alleged violation of a convention right will be able to bring proceedings against the public authority concerned or to raise the issue in any other proceedings.

The court may grant appropriate relief including damages, but must apply the principles adopted by the European Court of Human Rights in determining damages.

(European awards are notoriously modest).During the passage of the Bill, two strong lobbies were at work.

The churches strongly opposed their inclusion as public authorities, fearing, for example, that they might be forced to celebrate homosexual marriages -- an unlikely threat.

The government rejected their exemption but accepted an amendment to require the courts to have particular regard to the importance of article 9, protecting freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

A media lobby expressed concern that the protection of privacy under article 8 would impinge on freedom of expression and inhibit the role of the media in exposing matters of public interest.

The government accepted that prior restraint on publication would be undesirable without giving the publisher the opportunity to contest it.

In effect, therefore, the Bill excludes ex parte injunctions restraining publication on privacy grounds.

This exclusion could itself be challenged under the convention.

The likelihood that the incorporation of article 8 will lead to the development of domestic remedies for invasion of privacy remains a strong one.Will the Human Rights Act produce a litigation explosion? It is doubtful.

On the one hand, the government claims a seismic constitutional change and Mr Justice Sedley has been put in charge of a £4.6 million programme of education for the judges in their extensive new responsibilities.

On the other hand, no provision has been made for educating the public about its new rights and opportunities; nor has the public been offered any new source of advice and representation for human rights claims.

The government has rejected, or at best postponed indefinitely, the establishment of a Human Rights Commission which could fulfil these roles and perform an invaluable role in promoting the new culture.It is understandable that the government wants to change the culture without a flood of litigation.

Doubtless changes will occur as a result of public authorities deciding voluntarily to bring their practices into line with the convention.

But to grant rights and deny the chance to enforce them is hypocritical.

A Human Rights Commission, as has been demonstrated in several other countries, can make rights meaningful by providing the means of resolving disputes without at the same time promoting unnecessary litigation.

The government should urgently reconsider its refusal to establish a commission.

Otherwise it risks creating expectations only to disappoint themCIVIL LIBERTIES LAWYERS ARE UNEASY ABOUT THE REACTION TO THE OMAGH BOMBING, WRITE JOHN WADHAM AND CERI EDWARDSThe government's response to the atrocities in Omagh -- the Criminal Justice (Terrorism and Conspiracy) Act 1998 (CJTCA) -- received its Royal Assent only three days after publication.

The resulting legislative changes have caused grave disquiet amongst civil liberties lawyers and have demonstrated that the British government has learnt little from the failures of its predecessors in hastily implementing legislation.

Allowing less than one day of scrutiny for each of the three decades of troubles in Northern Ireland, the government has failed to acknowledge that emergency powers feed the conflict from which political violence emerges and will not deliver justice for the victims of the Omagh bombing.Rushed and draconian anti-terrorist legislation has repeatedly failed to delivery terrorists into the hands of the law.

The imposition of repressive security measures for short term benefit has never worked, and has proved to be counter-productive to peace.

Moreover, it has produced a litany of human rights abuses: the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven spent a total of 200 years imprisoned for crimes they did not commit.The main provisions of this Act allow for the opinion of a senior police officer to be admissible in court as evidence of membership of specified terrorist groups; that courts be allowed to draw inference from a suspect's refusal to answer questions during the course of an investigation into membership of proscribed terrorist groups; and that on conviction, the assets of individuals found to be members of such groups would be subject to forfeiture if they have been used in suppor t of the group or could be so used in future.

The Act also creates an offence of conspiring in the UK to commit terrorist or other serious offences in a foreign country.Liberty maintains that the provisions contained in the Act violate a suspect's right to be presumed innocent, the right not to be compelled to incriminate oneself and the right to silence, as recognised in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention, the cornerstone of the government's flagship Human Rights Bill.The Home Secretary says that these are 'tightly focused and proportionate measures which contain safeguards for suspects'.

However, although each individual will have the right to have the opportunity to consult with a solicitor before being questioned by the police -- although not necessarily while being interviewed -- the Act makes the whole practice of advising suspects extremely difficult.According to Paul McGee, legal officer at the Campaign for the Administration of Justice: 'These safeguards go no way to assist the suspect as neither he nor his solicitor will be aware of what they will be interviewed about.'As well as having to explain the normal rule on inferences being made from silence, the solicitor will also have to mention the new rules on inferences contained in the Act.

As the suspect will then be interviewed without the presence of his solicitor it will be incumbent on him not only to remember all this advice but also to put it into practice.

This will mean not only that it will be impossible for solicitors to advise their clients adequately, but that once they have been consulted the client themselves will be expected to understand and apply complex legal principles.

Their failure to do so will have dire consequences.As Rosemary Nelson, a defence solicitor in Northern Ireland points out, police excesses have been recognised both nationally and internationally by the UN Special Rapporteur, who was highly critical of Royal Ulster Constabulary practices.

'It is astonishing that it is proposed that a belief expressed by a member of that force will be sufficient to deprive an accused of his liberty,' says Ms Nelson.Other distortions of the accused's right to silence, the police's ability to close bank accounts and take away property, aligned with any adverse inferences drawn from the accused's right to silence and the fact that the burden of proof will be that of a civil court rather than a criminal one, are in direct contravention of the principles established by the European Court of Human Rights in Murray v UK (1996).

They are likely to attract additional adverse judgments against both the UK and Irish governments in Strasbourg.Ironically, if there are any convictions under the provisions contained in the CJTCA, lawyers will soon be able to challenge them through the new Human Rights legislation.The Good Friday agreement, in its commitment to human rights, recognised that past human rights abuses have been part of the problem and have exacerbated the conflict.

Indeed, the agreement looked at the early removal of emergency powers.

This new legislation is the antithesis of this approach.

According to Mr McGee, as the people of Northern Ireland try to rebuild a system of government based on the rule of law, 'the government passes significant legislation departing from it'.The introduction of this legislation adheres to the tradition of rushing anti-terrorism legislation through Parliament without time for serious debate and scrutiny.

The ramifications of this on the work of lawyer s and the lives of citizens are clear.

The Act will not bring justice for the victims of the Omagh bombing.

Like earlier anti-terrorist measures it is likely to target communities with intimidation and harassment, resulting in increased support for paramilitary organisations, and as Ms Nelson fears, 'the weakening of respect for the rule of law'.