<p>Priorities for the Fifth Assembly</p>

Part of 4. 3. Questions to the Counsel General – in the Senedd at 3:43 pm on 6 July 2016.

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Photo of Mick Antoniw Mick Antoniw Labour 3:43, 6 July 2016

Of course, the convention and the Human Rights Act 1998 are rights that we have to incorporate into our own Welsh legislation. In fact, the UK Government has to do the same with its own legislation. Of course, we had the comments today from the Secretary of State for Wales that there was going to be the introduction of a bill of rights. I imagine that you as well, along with many others, met with the original committee that was set up to look at a bill of rights. It actually came to the conclusion that they could not fulfil their function without undermining some of the fundamental rights that were already in place.

I think that the European convention on human rights is one of the great legacies that the United Kingdom has given to Europe. It was drafted by European lawyers; it was drafted and had the involvement of some great and well-established Welsh lawyers—persons who quite often learnt their trade and their understanding of the importance of these principles during the Nuremberg trials. Of course, among them was Lord Elwyn-Jones, and many others from Wales who made that. So, I think the contribution we have made to it—. We have actually set the standards. We have set the legislative framework by it. It was promoted by Winston Churchill, and it is recognised internationally as one of the great contributions to the establishment of standards, of rights, across the world. It would be, in my view, a very serious step indeed to actually do anything that undermined or withdrew from those particular standards.