Field Court Chambers

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) sets out the fundamental rights and freedoms which contracting parties are required to respect. This Practice Note summarises the main Convention rights and the case law interpreting them.

This Practice Note examines compatibility of legislation with the Convention rights under the Human Rights Act 1998. It outlines the parliamentary procedure to make statements during the early stages of the legislative process to the effect that proposed legislation is compatible with Convention rights. It also considers sections 3 and 4 of the Human Rights Act 1998, which respectively concern the duty to interpret legislation compatibly with Convention rights and the courts’ power to declare a legislative provision incompatible with Convention rights. It also includes a tracker of declarations of incompatibility.

This Practice Note examines the general routes to a judgment that a public authority has acted compatibly with Convention rights, and not violated the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). These include derogations, reservations and matters within a state’s margin of appreciation. It also briefly considers the limits on restrictions which ECHR contracting states can place on Convention rights.

Human rights protected under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), ie Convention rights, can be broadly divided into three groups: absolute, qualified and limited. This Practice Note identifies what qualified Convention rights are, and examines the conditions that are necessary for an interference with qualified Convention rights to be permitted under the ECHR.

This Practice Note provides guidance on local authority designation for the purposes of section 31 of the Children Act 1989 (ChA 1989). It covers the different statutory tests for designation under care or supervisory orders and the ‘stop the clock’ provisions contained in ChA 1989, s 22 and ChA 1989, s 105(6).