BARAC UK is a founding organisation of BAME Lawyers for Justice.
BAME Lawyers 4 Justice Response to Parliaments Joint
Committee on Human Rights Report Black people, Racism and Human Rights.
Saturday, 14 November 2020
We welcome the Black
People, Racism and Human Rights report
published on the 11th November 2020 by Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human
Rights
The Committee polled Black
people in the UK to assess their views on the issues highlighted by the Black
Lives Matter movement. The report focuses on four areas; health, criminal
justice, nationality and immigration and democracy.
General
comments.
The report makes several damning
findings and critical recommendations, all of which we consider to be important
in seeking to restore trust and confidence of the Black communities in the rule
of law. Access to equality and equal rights is a fundamental for all
citizens. The fact that a large
proportion of our society continue to live with racism and discrimination and
be treated as unequal citizens is no longer a tolerable situation.
The report points to
fundamental breaches of the social contract between citizen and State which is
essential for any multicultural functioning democracy. Severe violations of Black
people's human rights cited in this report provide a vivid illustration of the
extent to which Black British people’s human rights are disregarded and abused.
These human rights abuses take place despite Government being aware of these serious
issues as evidenced by
legal commentary, academic
reports and government inquiries, all of which demonstrate increasing rates of
racial inequality, injustice and oppression.
Whilst the report is welcome,
we do not feel it goes far enough in its recommendations.
For example, the Committee
fails to recommend to government that it should sign up to the general
prohibition of discrimination outlined in Protocol 12, Article 1 the European Convention of Human Rights. (ECHR). Doing
so would provide a strong indication of the Government's commitment to tackling
the systemic and institutionalised racial discrimination. Signing this
important protocol would also n strengthen domestic race equality and human
rights legislation thereby improving trust and confidence of Black communities.
The report also fails to
reference this Government's failure to acknowledge or institute a programme
celebrating and contributing towards the UN's International Decade for People of
African descent, (2014 -2024)
Citizenship, human
rights and the rule of law.
Fundamental to a sense of
shared citizenship is a confidence in the equal application of the rule of law.
This report highlights the reality that the majority of Black people do not
believe that they are equally valued as citizens of the United Kingdom, nor do
they think that they are treated equally before the law. This is informed by strong
evidence from legal practice and academic research and validates the belief
that Britain remains a deeply racist society where the colour of one's skin is
more important than commitment to one's country.
The generally accepted
principle and basis of the social contract between Government and the British Black
community has been breached by a failure of the Government to acknowledge and
take action to address systemic institutional racism. The consequences of these
failures are profound and erode the very basis of the idea that Britain is a
modern, multicultural, meritocratic and inclusive democracy.
There is a fragile balance
between democracy, protection and obedience to the State. Failure to tackle
racism presents an existential threat to our civil condition. The State can no
longer credibly demand Black communities' obedience to the law whilst only
offering partial protection against the degrading effects of institutionalised
racism, injustice and racial disadvantage.
As a result, the State not
only loses its authority, representative democracy ceases to have credibility
in the eyes of those who are denied access to justice and equality.
The report's finding that
over 75% of black people in the UK do not believe that human rights are equally
protected is a chilling statistic that bears witness to the reality that black
people in the United Kingdom are third-class citizens living within a
supposedly "first-class democracy".
We concur with the
Committee's analysis on this issue and subsequent recommendation "This is
a damning indictment of our society and must be addressed as a matter of the
highest political priority. To this end, the Equality and Human Rights
Commission must undertake to run an annual opinion survey…"
We welcome the Committee's
undertaking to ensure that they hear from a diverse range of witnesses in their
deliberations. Black Asian and Minority ethnic Lawyers will assist the
Committee by helping to facilitate input and evidence from a broad delegation
from British Black communities.
We further agree that the
Equality and Human Rights Commission has failed to provide adequate leadership
or be effective or gain the trust of British Black communities in both tackling
racial inequality and protecting black people's human rights. The recent
appointment of Prof David Goodheart as an EHRC Commissioner a man whose on
record of denying the existence and reality of institutional racism is a
serious and deliberate provocation by Government and will simply further damage
Black public confidence in the institution.
The Committee's
recommendation that a new Commission of Racial Equality (CRE) and the creation
of local Race Equality councils should be established enjoys our support. All
available evidence demonstrates that the racial inequality gap has widened
since the demise of the CRE. The morphing of the CRE into the EHRC has failed.
We also urge the Committee to
recommend that Parliamentary select committees conduct race equality impact
assessments in all aspects of their work, and in particular, where known racial
and ethnic disparities and injustices exist.
The Commission
on Race and Ethnic Disparities mentioned in the
report and chaired by Dr Tony Sewell (someone else who is also on public record
as having challenged the very idea of institutionalised racism) and set up by
Prime Minister Boris Johnson in response to the Black Lives Matter protests,
lacks credibility. We anticipate its findings will not, given the views of its
chairman, enjoy the confidence of Britain's black communities and are unlikely
to make any strategically relevant or meaningful findings.
We support the idea of the
need for a comprehensive cross Government race equality strategy to improve the
collection of data on racial equality but any cross-Government initiatives,
must include representation from affected communities of different
perspectives.
Health.
One of the most significant
areas of fundamental human rights breaches occurs in health. The Committee’s
notes that "78% of black women and 47% of black men do not believe that their
health is equally protected by the NHS when compared to white people".
Death in childbirth provides
a profound and tragic indicator of the realities of cumulative effects of
systemic and institutionalised racism on black communities.
The Committee finds that
seven in 100,000 white women, 13 in 100,000 Asian women, 23 in 100,000 mixed
ethnicity women and 38 in 100,000 black women die in childbirth. The fact that
there remains no significant government action regarding this issue is an
appalling indictment. What it tells British black communities is that the
Government views black women's lives as of no significant value. Had white women died in similar numbers, this
would be a national scandal.
The Committee’s recommendation
that the NHS must set a target to end the maternal mortality gap is of critical
importance and work must begin on this immediately.
We believe that the number
of unnecessary deaths of black
infants' is an issue that was
deserving of recognition in this report. Black Caribbean and Black African
infant mortality are recorded as 6.6 and 6.3 deaths per 1000 live births. These
are the second and third highest ethnic minority into mortality rates behind
that of Pakistani babies that die at a rate of 6.7 per hundred live the births.
In contrast, white British babies have an infant mortality rate of 3.3 deaths
per 1000 live births.
There can be no greater
condemnation of any society that the ethnicity of its children should determine
their life expectancy at the point of birth.
The Committee quotes Public
Health England statistics which show the
disproportionate and severe impact of Covid19 on Black communities stating that
"after accounting for the effect of sex, age, deprivation and region,
black people of Caribbean and other black ethnicities had between 10 and 50%
higher risk of death when compared to white British people."
That Government and the
National Health Service appear to have no substantive response to the increased
vulnerability of Black communities to Covid-19 is further evidence of the
extent of neglect.
That the Government has
recently announced that any new vaccine will be applied to a list of priority
groups that does not include vulnerable BAME communities must be revisited
immediately based on the evidence.
Criminal justice.
The continued criminalisation
of the British Black community through the process of racial profiling in
policing and immigration and the effects of systemic, institutionalised racism
has dramatically increased in the last 20 years. The Committee's report states
of all the " issues covered in this polling this... [was the one area]
where there was greatest consensus...’.
85% of Black people not being
confident that they would be treated the same as a white person by the
police."
This was particularly true
for young Black people between 10 and 17 years old who only make up 4 per cent
of the population but make up 33% of children remanded in youth custody. The
Committee states "the number of children in youth custody from a Black
background has increased 6% in the last year, and now accounts for 28% of the
youth custody population".
The Lammy Review commissioned by David Cameron's Government in 2016 to
look into racism within the criminal justice system identified profound ethnic
disparities in criminal justice administration, processing and sentencing. The
review made 35 key recommendations of which only six, according to the report's
author David Lammy MP, have been implemented.
There is a profound crisis of
confidence between British
Black communities and police services in England and Wales. Public confidence surveys conducted by regional Police
services including the Metropolitan
Police Service have shown a catastrophic drop
in the level of public confidence in policing. It is this area that we believe
will act as a catalyst for wider civil disturbance if radical action is not
taken to begin to address growing tensions between Black communities and the
police.
Key to this, in addition to
implementing the Lammy Review's recommendations, is addressing critical issues
such as stop and search and the disproportionate number of black deaths in
police, prison and immigration service custody. We agree with the Committee's
recommendations to governments to establish an Article "right to
life" Commissioner and Human Rights compliance unit to ensure investigative
support to the victims' families and also ensure that critical recommendations
for action are implemented to prevent future unnecessary deaths.
The recommendations from the
Lammy Review and the Angiolini
Review must be acted upon with urgency. We
welcome the recent ruling by the Supreme Court that has determined that Inquest juries’ inquiries into
sudden deaths, in seeking to determine where
responsibility lies, should
not now rely on the legal principle of ‘beyond reasonable doubt but should
instead rely on ‘the balance of probabilities.”
Nationality and
immigration.
We believe a culture of
racism is implicit in British immigration policy and practice. The Windrush
scandal provides a powerful spotlight on the serial injustice faced by many Black
British citizens in seeking to access their citizenship rights. But people were
unlawfully detained and deported because of the Government's "hostile
environment" in direct breach of their right to liberty contained in
article 5 of the ECHR.
There can be no more
egregious example of the extent to which Black people are subject to racial
injustice. Wendy Williams, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary Windrush
Lessons Learned Review into the scandal published in March 2020,
found that "failings demonstrate an institutional ignorance and
thoughtlessness towards the issue of race and the history of the Windrush generation within the Department, which are
consistent with some elements of the definition of institutionalised
racism." We believe that the failings identified are entirely consistent
with the definition of institutionalised racism and can be categorised as such
beyond all reasonable doubt. Williams
found that the effects of the Windrush scandal was to inflict serious harm on
its victims.
We agree with Windrush
victims who wrote to the Guardian on 14 October stating that the Home Office’s
improvement plan published on 30 September 2020 is "long on regrets but
short on specifics of how and when appropriate changes will be made."
The Government's compensation
scheme is failing the victims and is in total disarray, adding serious insult
to grievous injury. Government’s decision to set the threshold of evidential
requirements for eligibility for compensation as "beyond a reasonable
doubt" is an insurmountable obstacle for the majority of Windrush victims
in claiming compensation. This wilful and malicious action by British
Government provides powerful insight into the extent to which British Black
communities are now treated with utter contempt by our Government.
We believe the Government
should be subject to a motion of censure in both the Houses of Parliament and
the House of Lords condemning its failure to deliver on its promises to ensure
that justice was delivered to all Windrush victims.
To restore trust and
confidence within Black communities that this process is authentic and
meaningful, we believe that the Government should provide a sum of £200 million
to be given to an independent body. That body could then adjudicate and
administer the process of compensation and reparation to Windrush victims and
end the ongoing scandal that has seen victims sadly die whilst waiting for
justice.
We are also concerned that
polices and legislation governing deportation, family reunion, asylum and the
fees structure for applying for immigration status documentation, need to be reviewed
as a matter of urgency as these disproportionately affect and impact on the
lives of the UK’s Black and ethnic minority population in an adverse way.
Conclusion.
Without immediate and
substantive action to address the growth in racial inequality as a consequence
of systemic, institutionalised racism and in the absence of Government, action
to fundamentally address human rights abuses experienced by Black British people,
we believe there could be increased
racial divisiveness, a breakdown in respect for and adherence for the law and
government institutions.
The consequences of allowing Black
British communities to continue to suffer such egregious abuses of our human
rights will be civil disorder in our major inner cities and a breakdown in law
and order. It is incumbent upon Government to recognise the realities of
systemic institutionalised racism as it manifests itself in the fundamental
abuses of the human rights of British Black communities, and to take urgent
action now to avoid, what would be a national catastrophe.
We will be contacting the
Joint Committee to facilitate a delegation presentation from a broad range of
national Black organisation and expert individuals that can assist in
contributing to this important debate in an effort to support the work of the
Committee and further highlight these issues.
End.
