Human Rights Act - three months on

It is more than three months since the implementation of the Human Rights Act in England and Wales - an Act that proved to be one of the most controversial pieces of legislation in recent years.

It incorporated parts of the European Convention of Human Rights into domestic law, including various rights - to marry, to a fair trial - and freedoms, including the freedoms of expression and religion, and freedom from slavery.

The Home Office said its implementation would change little, as Britons had enjoyed such rights since the UK ratified the convention in 1951. But it provoked a mass resignation of magistrates and critics said it would bring our already stretched legal system to its knees by allowing the courts to fill up with chancers who would use it to wriggle out of trouble.

Who was right? Little over three months on, it is too early to evaluate fully the impact the Act has had on courts and lawyers across the country. But the early reports are that the predicted chaos has failed to materialise.

Mike O'Brien, Home Office Minister with responsibility for the Human Rights Act, said: "So much for claims before the Act came into force of a meltdown in the system; early indications are that the justice system is operating well with the new Act.

"The number of cases awaiting trial in the crown court is down on last year's figure, not up, and the total number of civil cases issued is also lower." The latest figures from the Lord Chancellor's Department comparing October 2000 with October 1999 show that numbers of some cases have even fallen since the Act was implemented. The number of cases awaiting trial in the crown court is down, from 24,104 in October 1999 to 23,603 in October 2000 (and from 24,383 in November 1999 to 23,216 in November 2000).

The number of civil cases issued in the same period is also down, from 153,317 in October 1999 to 144,090 in October 2000.

Officials at the Chancellor's Department, which runs the country's judicial system, agree with the Home Office. A spokesman said: "While it is still early days, use of the Human Rights Act since it was implemented in October has been much as expected. There has been no significant increase in the workload of the courts and the judicial system is matching up very well."

He added: "There have been 168 occasions on which HRA issues have been raised in crown courts across the country since the Act was implemented. This is less than half a per cent of all the cases heard in crown court over the same period, which is extremely low. Also, the average length of a hearing at crown court has gone down from 4.9 hours in November 1999 to 4.8 hours in November 2000."

In August last year solicitor Steve Wedd, of the Criminal Solicitors' Association, was one of those who warned the Evening Standard of impending chaos. He said then: "The Government has bitten off more than it can chew. There will be tens of thousands of magistrates' court cases, thousands of crown court cases and hundreds of High Court cases arising from this convention."

Now he has revised his opinion, saying: "The rush of cases I forecast then doesn't appear to have materialised, which is interesting. In general, it is not as bad as it could have been."

One lawyer, who did not wish to be named, said the Act had not had as much of an impact as expected because people were simply threatening to use it, and the threat was enough.

He said: "There have been a number of cases in the press where individuals have threatened to invoke the Human Rights Act and then found that their opponents backed down. As a result, the legal system is hardly affected, and another case is kept out of the courts."

Another fear, that large numbers of people would apply for legal aid so they could use the Act in court, also seems to have been without substance. A spokesman for the Legal Services Commission said there had been "no substantial increase" in the number of applications for public funding certificates to bring cases in the courts".

But while the courts may not be log-jammed with people trying to use the Act, some are certainly having a go.

See More on this story links above.