The United Kingdom and Human Rights - College of Social ...

122 Values and Civil and Political Liberties
Canada, it would act as "brakes," using a more
appropriate mechanistic metaphor than the absolutist
imagery of Dworkin, who, surprisingly for a liberal
individualist, has borrowed Hobbes's notion that when
all else fails clubs—I mean rights—are trumps. Because
Parliament could continue to legislate as it wishes and
expressly "notwithstand" the Bill, no conflict with the
legislature as such would arise, although there would be
problems for mandarins and any government's political
managers in securing passage of amending legislation.
There would also be a psychological impact, with judicial
intervention becoming even more visible and a greater
focus for political comment.
The importance of a Bill of Rights is long-term,
consisting primarily of its educational function, especially
in modifying parliamentary attitudes, with growing
reluctance publicly to "notwithstand," and in influencing
bureaucratic and public perspectives. Conventions of the
constitution {pace Dicey and Ivor Jennings) have had long
and effective lives in the United Kingdom, and new
conventions about the unconstitutionality, as opposed to
illegality, of enacting any conflicting legislation would
develop. Other sectors of society, especially powerful
interest groups, such as trade unions, and political
parties, would ultimately come to terms with the
standards of the Bill of Rights and the power of the
judiciary to uphold these. Their attitudes too would be
shaped.
Those who advocate a new constitutional settlement
raise two other significant issues, themselves characterisable
as human rights questions. Devolution involves
the right to internal self-determination, an area of
International Law which is rapidly developing. It has
such major implications for the whole governmental
system that it is inappropriate here to do more than
mention it. The same applies to just methods of giving