Defending Human Rights for all
Human Rights are the basis of an equal and just society.
Clearly written into law, properly enforced and with rights holders supported to speak out when they believe their rights are not being upheld, Human Rights can prove transformative for ensuring that all Scots are treated with dignity and respect.
Human Rights legislation empowers people to speak up for and defend their rights, and has been used by refugees, disabled people and others to overturn cruel policies and win fair treatment. But more than 10 years after the idea was first raised, we still do not have a Scottish Human Rights Act that underpins the rights of all Scots to a good education, a healthy diet, clean air and water, and other issues within the responsibilities of the Scottish Parliament.
Almost every chapter in this manifesto includes policies designed to uphold and strengthen our rights. But these rights will be underpinned by the Scottish Human Rights Bill, likely to prove one of the most important pieces of legislation passed in the history of the Scottish Parliament. From cultural rights to social security, and from the right to clean air to the rights of disabled people, women, migrants and other groups, the Bill will ensure that every single decision made by a devolved public body – and by any organisation acting on its behalf – is made in a way which advances the human rights of all of us.
Those who hold particular religious beliefs, such as members of the Jewish and Islamic faiths, are amongst the most likely to face discrimination, racism and denial of their rights. We will put special emphasis on tackling Islamophobia, anti-semitism and other forms of racism, ensuring members of all faith groups are supported to realise their rights to religious freedom, safety and respect.
- Introduce a Human Rights Bill that transforms lives in Scotland, recognising economic, social and cultural rights, such as the right to housing, healthcare, creative opportunities, social security, freedom of religion, education and food.
- Ensure the bill will recognise the right to a healthy environment, incorporating rights to access clean water, air, greenspace and nature, with these rights enforceable in a new Scottish Environmental court.
- Public bodies and Scottish Government Ministers will have clear duties to act in ways that advance these rights, and there will be a clear mechanism for resolving clashes between human rights and other statutory responsibilities, with human rights taking precedence.
- Properly-funded legal aid and other mechanisms will ensure that people without access to legal advice can hold public bodies to account where they feel their rights have not been upheld.
- Ensure the Scottish Human Rights Bill extends beyond the Rights of Children and Young People, already incorporated into Scots law. The new Bill will embed the rights of disabled people, older people, women, members of faith groups, migrants, gypsy, roma and traveller communities, and LGBT+ people under international treaties.
- Introduce Human Rights Budgeting, and give the Scottish Human Rights Commission a role to assess every Scottish Budget Bill for rights compliance; and ensure all budgets set by public bodies go through similar processes.
- Place legal duties on public bodies and any organisation acting on their behalf to not only uphold human rights here in Scotland, but consider how their work impacts on the human and environmental rights in other countries.
- Require environmental rights and justice checks on all planning and infrastructure decisions.
- Improve the collection of equalities data, in particular ensuring public bodies collect reliable intersectional equalities data, so that we know when our rights, especially those of the most discriminated groups, are not being respected.
- Tackle current and historical discrimination of Gypsy / Travellers, by reviewing existing legislation and improving equalities assessments of bills going forward, to remove systemic discrimination of Gypsy / Travellers in Scots law.
- Further to the “Tinker Experiment” apology, we will accept the recommendations of the Scottish Human Rights Commission to provide compensation for the victims and families of forced assimilation, forced migration and other historic wrongs perpetrated by the State.
- Implement the Scotland-focused recommendations of the UN report on the UK’s compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). As part of this, we will carry out a Structural Racism Review to investigate the way public policies directly and indirectly discriminate against people on the basis of ethnicity.
- Respond to unacceptable increases in anti-Semitic and other hate crimes by reviewing the effectiveness of the Hate Crime (Scotland) Act, and the policies that support it, such as anti-racism education in schools, and police and justice practices.
- Complete the implementation of the recommendations of the Cross-Party Group on Tackling Islamophobia’s Islamophobia in Scotland report, including improving the reporting of Islamophobia and other forms of religious hatred in schools.
