UK: Amnesty highlights major advances on 20th anniversary of Human Rights Act
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Kate Allen
Human rights group Amnesty International has highlighted 20 important cases involving the Human Rights Act 1998 to mark 20 years since it received royal assent.
Kate Allen, Amnesty’s UK director, called the Act “the unsung hero of UK life” and hit out at threats from politicians to remove or repeal the Act.
Local Amnesty groups are planning anniversary events to celebrate the Act, and its UK bookshops - including the Edinburgh shop in Marchmont - will give away a thousand free copies of “The Little Book of Big Freedoms”.
Ms Allen said: “We should celebrate the way the Act defends all of us - especially the most vulnerable - and resist any attempts to dilute or remove those protections.”
High-profile cases highlighted by Amnesty today include the Hillsborough families’ bid for a proper inquest, and legal claims for negligence against Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust.
The human rights group also said the Grenfell Tower fire and Windrush scandal had “raised issues which the Human Rights Act sheds important light on”.
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