In a speech to a legal audience at London’s Lincoln Inn, the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve QC MP, said that the benefits of remaining within the Convention and retaining our position as a leader of the international community are seen by the government to be fundamental to our national interest.
On the reform of the European Court of Human Rights, he said the UK is a supporter of the Court and believes it is an essential part of the system for protecting human rights across Europe.
However, he concentrated on one idea to both help reduce the backlog of cases and also allow the Court to assume its proper role as the guardian of the Convention - strengthening the principle of subsidiarity.
Subsidiarity has a specific meaning in the context of the Convention. The principle of subsidiarity is that national authorities of member states (that is, their governments, legislatures and courts) have the primary responsibility for guaranteeing and protecting human rights at a national level. The principle stresses the subsidiary nature of the supervisory mechanisms established by the Convention, including the European Court of Human Rights, in achieving these aims.