HR 201: Letter to the Chairman from the Right Reverend Michael Scott-Joynt, The Bishop of Winchester

 

 

Human Rights Annual Report 2008 - Overseas Territories

 

I read with interest the Committee's recently published Human Rights Report 2008, especially its references in chapter eight to the relationship between the Christian character of certain Territories and the safeguarding of human rights. Whilst there is much to be commended in the Committee's Report overall, I am concerned that chapter eight betrays some worrying misconceptions and gives the appearance of the Committee being more interested in advancing a secularising agenda than in simply achieving the worthy aim of ensuring the practical protection of the human rights of those who are within the jurisdiction of Overseas Territories.

 

In its Annual Report, the Committee seems to have proceeded on the basis of a misconception which has led it, unfortunately and quite unnecessarily, to recommend that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office should, in future, insist "that no specific religion of faith community be singled out for privileges mention" when constitutions of Overseas Territories are revised.

 

This is, on the face of it, a strange recommendation from a Committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, whose largest nation has an established Christian Church and whose Sovereign is required by law to "maintain the laws of God, the true profession of the Gospel and the Protestant reformed religion established by law." With Christianity - indeed a particular expression of it - embedded in our own constitutional framework, it is not clear on what basis the Committee believes that the United Kingdom should be seeking to object to a reference to Christianity in the constitutions of Overseas Territories for which the United Kingdom is responsible.

 

The proposed new constitutions for the Cayman Islands and for St Helena, Ascension and Tristan de Cunha both mention the Christian character of those territories. The Committee (at paragraph 301 of its Report) appears to find these references to Christianity objectionable on the ground that, read with other constitutional provisions, they "must give rise to a risk that Cayman Islands courts will not necessarily follow the Strasbourg Article 14 case-law in the absence of anything in the constitution which requires them to do so".

 

That seems to be a wrong analysis on two counts.

 

First, and fundamentally, there is nothing inconsistent between a constitutional statement that a particular country or territory is Christian and the protection against discrimination in the enjoyment of conventions rights conferred by Article 14 of the ECHR. A general statement about the Christian character of a territory should not prevent anyone - whether Christian or not - from enjoying the protection of the Convention. The view that it would do so seems wrongly to suppose that the protection of fundamental human rights and freedoms is necessarily incompatible with Christian doctrine and belief.

 

In fact the contrary is the case: the principles that gave rise to the Convention were Christian principles, including the belief that all human beings are created in the image of God and worthy of respect as such. There is no basis for saying that a constitutional statement that Christianity is the religion of a particular territory is likely to result in those who are not Christian, or do not adhere to the tenets of Christianity, being treated less favourably in the enjoyment of Convention rights; and there is nothing in such a statement that would prevent the courts of the territory or the Privy Council from giving effect to Convention rights.

 

Secondly, a recommendation that the FCO should insist on the removal of references to the religion of a territory seems a doubtful way to ensure that the courts of a particular territory "follow the Strasbourg Article 14 case-law". The way to ensure that that is the case is, surely, for the FCO to seek the inclusion of an express requirement to give effect to the Convention, its articles and case law, in a territory's constitution.

 

I should be grateful if you would draw this letter to the attention of the Committee's membership, I am also copying it to the Foreign Secretary and to the Archbishop of Canterbury, for their information.

 

With my good wishes to you and to your colleagues.

 

14 September 2009