The UK Justice Secretary said Boris Johnson had given him the task of rewriting the law when he moved him from the Foreign Office in September's reshuffle. On Sunday, Mr Raab gave fresh details about how he plans to prevent Brussels interference from Strasbourg in British matters as part of his overhaul of the Human Rights Act.
In an update on those incoming changes, Mr Raab said soldiers and EU institutions including police and health services should not be dictated to by judges in Britain. He also repeated an assertion he made during his conference speech in Manchester about the Act being used by criminals to prevent their deportation. Speaking to a newspaper, the Cabinet minister, who is also the deputy prime minister, warned that a serious issue was developing where foreign criminals were using the Human Rights Act's right to family life clause to frustrate deportation orders, with it being cited in somewhere between 100 and 200 cases a year. The proposals to shake up the Act are likely to be debated before MPs in the spring, with changes to the judicial review process potentially being discussed before the month of March
The plan had initially been to give a second reading to the Judicial Review and Courts Bill on Monday, but the House of Commons is preparing to clear its timetable to make way for tributes to Conservative MP Sir David Amess, who was murdered on Friday. Mr Raab told the Sunday Telegraph it was wrong that judges in Strasbourg ruled on matters relating to British soldiers fighting overseas, telling the newspaper that he was studying how to wind up the court's influence in the UK. Do you think it's the job of the European Court in Strasburg to be dictating things to, whether it's the NHS, whether it's our welfare provision, or whether it is our police forces, the Lord Chancellor said. We want the Supreme Court to have a final voice in interpreting the laws of the land, not the Strasbourg court. If Rishi Sunak gets to spend four years in the British parliament, his pending Brexit powers will come into play.
In his judicial review proposals, Mr Raab said he wanted to change the current system, which he said left open to long and expensive legal challenges being used to harpoon major Government infrastructure projects and slowing down development. The leader of Les Patriotes celebrated the news saying: The UK continues to reclaim its national sovereignty. After Brexit, the country wants to free itself from the disastrous ECHR. Nicola Sturgeon LIVE: Clash of Kill, as hated SNP scheme comes into force TODAY INSIGHT Beaune breaks away from the EU talks to threaten UK REACTION Brexit LIVE: Take that, EU! Ford backs UK for electric vehicle drive LIVE BLOG Generation Frexit leader Charles-Henri Gallois echod: The United Kingdom, which took back control with Brexit and is free from the EU, will be able to impose the superiority of its national law on the decisions of the ECHR! It is called national and popular sovereignty versus the government of judges! It comes as tensions between the UK and the EU continue to soar over the role of the European Court of Justice ECJ in the Northern Ireland protocol protocol. Brussels last week released a series of proposals aimed at cutting the red tape the protocol has imposed on moving goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.