Grieve defends bill of rights plans

It is a "romantic fancy" to suggest centuries-old laws such as the Magna Carta and habeas corpus will protect British citizens in today's world, Dominic Grieve has said.

The shadow attorney general said that greater protection of rights and liberties was needed in an age where counter-terrorism and criminal justice laws had led to a "massive accretion of state power over the citizen".

And he argued that a bill of rights, as proposed by Conservative leader David Cameron, could provide a "pragmatic legislative response" to this problem.

Mr Grieve said such a document would provide more guidance for judges and ministers in applying human rights law when national security was at stake than the current Human Rights Act, which Mr Cameron has promised to scrap.

It would also provide an opportunity to "engage in a debate as to what aspects of our legal and constitutional framework constitutes core values in the area of civil liberties that should be identified and protected", he said.

The Tory MP's comments, to a Liberty fringe meeting at the party conference in Bournemouth last night, come just days after the lord chancellor, Lord Falconer, attacked the Conservatives' plans as "irresponsible".

"Feeding a view which says you can somehow repeal the Human Rights Act, stay in the [European Convention on Human Rights] ECHR and produce your own a la carte menu of English rights was legally nonsense and politically irresponsible," he said.

Lord Falconer, who is also the constitutional affairs secretary, added: "We will campaign for human rights, campaign passionately and campaign defiantly."

At another fringe event in Bournemouth last night, members of Mr Grieve's own party also shed doubt on the proposed bill of rights.

Higher education spokesman Boris Johnson accepted that there was "bonkers misrepresentation of human rights" in the way the Human Rights Act, which incorporates the ECHR into UK law, was implemented.

But he said it would be "terribly difficult" to repeal, not to mention internationally embarrassing, and argued the combination of this act and other laws made a separate bill outlining basic freedoms unnecessary.

"We are steadily getting a British written constitution, with statutes, the Human Rights Act and so on, and I see no particular reason to codify it further," he said.

However, last night Mr Grieve said further protection for civil liberties and basic rights, for example trial by jury, was required – as was a document that outlined the rights of individuals to the community, as well as vice versa.

"Rights and liberties will no longer be a tool for those striving for special privileges but a protector of all and a reminder of the duties that we all owe each other," he said.

The bill would need to be entrenched to make it truly effective, he said, and suggested the approval of both Houses of Parliament be required to change the legislation.

"On its own a bill of rights will not provide all the solutions to the threat we face from creeping state authoritarianism in the face of terrorism and the fear of social disintegration," Mr Grieve said.

"But it's an important step in restoring faith in those values that have made our country an exceptional haven of tolerance and progress in human development."