12 January 2009
House of Lords
Asked by Lord Laird
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have ratified the Fourth Protocol to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms; whether they intend to incorporate Article 1 of the Protocol (prohibition of imprisonment for debt); whether persons may be imprisoned in the United Kingdom for not fulfilling contractual obligations; and whether that Article has implications for the law of contempt of court and the powers of judges. [HL349]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Bach):
In response to Question HL349, the United Kingdom has not ratified the Fourth Protocol to the ECHR. There are continuing concerns over Articles 2 and 3 of that Protocol, which could be taken, respectively, to confer rights in relation to passports and a right of abode on categories of British nationals who do not currently have that right. In the absence of any change in the arrangements for issuing British passports and the relevant provisions of our immigration legislation, it is not possible to ratify the Protocol. Given that Protocols may not be ratified in part, the Government has no plans either to ratify Article 1 of the Protocol nor to incorporate it into the Human Rights Act, as the framework of the Act permits incorporation only of those substantive rights by which the United Kingdom is bound under the ECHR. Nevertheless, there exists no provision in the law of England and Wales that directly permits the imprisonment of a person for a failure to fulfil contractual obligations or pay a private debt. Any such deprivation of liberty would therefore lack a lawful basis and constitute a breach of Article 5 of the ECHR.
