Constitutional reform since 1997 has not gone far enough Discuss 40 marks

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Malsha De Mel

“Constitutional reform since 1997 has not gone far enough” Discuss 40 marks

After the Labour party’s strong victory in the 1997 general election, winning 179 seats, they have made moves and provisions towards constitutional reform. Indeed, the two prime ministers; Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have done much for reform over the years. They began to reform the British constitution, introducing the Human Rights Act 1998, Freedom of Information Act 2000, Devolution, elected mayors and local government cabinets and some reform of the Lords among other less important changes. Unfortunately, Labour did not complete those reforms and great deal was left undone, because Brown lost the 2010 election and Conservative-Liberal Democratic government was created.

On one hand, it can be said that the constitutional reform has gone far enough because Human rights act allowed the UK a codified definition of individual’s rights and so widened the capacity to protect individual’s rights. It also gave more powers to the courts to enforce people rights.  The main impact of the HRA has therefore been that it has made the European Convention substantially more accessible to UK citizens. Therefore, constitutionals reform since 1997 have gone far enough because the Human rights act allowed people freedom of speech.  

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However, there have been criticisms about the Human right act in that it has not gone far enough. This is because it was not binding in Parliament rules so they do not have to follow it and can abuse their rights. For example in the anti-terrorism act, this gave police greater power and the Freedom of information Act 2000 has been partly effective because it enabled us to have access to government information and other aspects of government. Furthermore, through the judge’s interpretation of HRA, judges can ‘rewrite’ legislations and this would make judges too strong in that they are ...

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