‘[I]f you were to take away the Human Rights Act now, all that jurisprudence is there . . . and the right of individual petition will be there. And we will still have to recognise that if we take a...

‘[I]f you were to take away the Human Rights Act now, all that jurisprudence is there . . . and the right of individual petition will be there. And we will still have to recognise that if we take a decision which is contrary to the human rights convention, somebody is going to complain to Strasbourg and that may cause trouble for the UK. So it’s very difficult to see how simply wiping out the Human Rights Act is really going to change anything until we withdraw from the convention – which, personally, I don’t think is conceivable.’ (Lord Hope, reported in J. Rotenberg, ‘Are Supreme Court justices More Assertive Than They Were as Law Lords?’, Law Society Gazette (5 August 2010))

To what extent do you agree with Lord Hope?