12 - Declarations, Obligations, Collaborations

Summary

One key question which arises under the Human Rights Act 1998 is whether there is a constitutional convention of political compliance with declarations of incompatibility. This chapter provides a comprehensive empirical analysis of all the political responses to declarations of incompatibility in the first two decades of the HRA. It concludes that there is significant evidence of a constitutional convention in statu nascendi. Though the convention does not preclude the government and legislature from rejecting a declaration of incompatibility in exceptional and rare circumstances, there is a conventional and normative expectation amongst the key political actors that they are under an obligation to comply with those declarations in the normal run of affairs.