According to the Telegraph, the Government has tabled an amendment to the Higher Ed Bill in the House of Lords that would significantly dilute the new protections it creates for free speech in English universities.
A free speech law designed to prevent universities from cancelling controversial speakers has been watered down, the Telegraph can reveal.
The Government has made concessions to universities over new powers it had drawn up to enable academics and students to sue institutions for breaching their free speech rights.
It has tabled amendments that would require academics and students to only seek compensation in the courts as a last resort, after first pursuing complaints through the procedures of the relevant university and the higher education regulator.
Claimants would also have to prove they had suffered a loss.
It follows lobbying by Tory peers, who argued that the law would cause universities to face huge costs. However, others in the party are furious at the perceived weakening of the support for free speech.
This is quite a complicated issue, so worth explaining.
As things stood, the Bill would have created a new statutory tort enabling students and academics to sue English universities in the county court if they believed they had breached the new duties the Bill imposes on universities to protect free speech. This was one of two new enforcement mechanisms introduced by the Bill, the other being that it creates a new post of Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom in the Office for Students with responsibility for ensuring free speech at universities is upheld.
The creation of the new tort has been vigorously opposed in the House of Lords, including by the former Conservative Higher Education Minister David Willetts, and, in the hope of seeing off a rebellion, the Government has proposed a compromise whereby the tort would remain but can only be used as a last resort after students and academics have exhausted all other remedies, including complaining to the Office for Students.
That will have the effect of watering down the Bill for a variety of reasons. If a speaker is no-platformed at a university, the tort in its original form would have enabled them to seek an injunction in the country court, meaning the event could have gone ahead, but if this amendment goes through that will no longer be possible. In addition, while the Office for Students can suggest universities pay fines when complaints are upheld, it doesn’t have the power to force them to do so. But more importantly, turning court action into something that can only be taken as a last resort means the enforcement of the new free speech duties in the Bill is almost entirely dependent on the right person being appointed as the Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom – someone who passionately believes in free speech rather than a lackey of the universities sector. There’s a risk the current Government won’t appoint the right person, and that risk becomes a racing certainty when it’s Keir Starmer’t turn to appoint their successor.
All regulatory bodies are susceptible to capture by the sector they’re supposed to be regulating and that’s particularly true of higher education. The only way to make sure universities uphold the new free speech duties in the Bill is to give aggrieved parties the option of suing them in the county court. Without that, this Bill will make no more difference that the Education (No.2) Act 1986. That Act imposed a legal duty on universities to uphold free speech, but it’s never been taken seriously by the sector because there was no accompanying enforcement mechanism. The new statutory tort is what gave the new free speech duties teeth. If that’s going to be reduced to a weapon of last resort, the Bill is virtually a dead letter.
Obviously, this watering down is something the Free Speech Union will vigorously oppose. We pulled together a letter last week signed by over 50 academics urging the Government not to ditch the tort entirely (which you can read here). While it hasn’t done that, this compromise renders it almost useless.
The Telegraph article is worth reading in full, not least because it contains this wonderful quote from Jo Phoenix, who was no-platformed by Essex University:
To now think that I would have to go through a lengthy complaints process, well let’s just say that this process is an excellent way that university managers can kick the problem in our universities into the long grass.
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Human Rights court: “If kids want to cut off their genitalia and undergo irreversible hormone treatment, that’s their right and not even the parents can stop them.”
Also the Human Rights court: “If kids don’t want the vaccine, they don’t have the right to refuse it. Not even their parents can stop it.”
Can we all just admit that the Human Rights court is more concerned with destroying young lives than with actually protecting any human rights?
No. Try reading the piece.
More illiteracy around than I thought – or just blind confirmation bias about the contents of a text.
Just making things up is just a reflection of Covidiot ranting.
So, the ECHR wimped out saying ‘not for us to tell the authorities what to do’.
If vaccination cannot be made compulsory for adults, how is it acceptable for ‘authorities’ to overrule the wishes of the parents, just because the child is too young. Parents make proxy decisions for children almost all of the time, except for this situation? And if the child themself declines, it’s okay to ignore their wishes?
I’m no lawyer so maybe this case needs to be heard somewhere else. It doesn’t sound much like consent to me.
They can’t. Parents/guardian give consent unless the child is made a ward off court eg in cases of Jehovah’s Witness children who need a blood transfusion
Of course – one of the ironies is that the ECHR is doing exactly what the Little Englanders have always claimed it never did : i.e. stayed away from interference in a country’s decision on the ‘public good’.
Remember all the rhetoric rubbishing the notion of an international framework of ‘Human Rights’???
Pity when a court of appeal on fundamental human rights is just what we need in a country with demonstrable flimsy protections.
As I see it, there remains an issue of testing the concepts of ‘necessity’ and ‘public health’ etc.
Given not everything is as it seemed, why use an irresponsible headline implying it is!!?
Vaccinate the cattle!
I’m not sure if this is sarcasm or just straight trolling. Either way it certainly fails to advance the discussion.
There is something very wrong with this decision. The court should have ruled that governments cannot deny children an education because they havent been vaccinated. If someone doesnt get vaccinated, they do not pose a health risk to those that have.
Instead the court has become implicit in medical treatment coercion against children and their parents. If you dont have the right to control what medicine goes into your body or the bodied of you children then you have no rights at all.
Yes, that’s the logical hole that the pro-vaxers fall into
This is shocking and makes very little sense. A UK court should uphold parent’s wishes for their children to not have a vaccine. Something very wrong here.
But surely… parents and children must have rights when the state tries forcing them to take experimental vaccines, as are those now being marketed for covid, i.e. authorized for emergency use without having satisfied normal requirements for approval including long-term side-effects. We need lawyers.
Not in the article is that European Court of Justice for Human Rights is a NGO and two essential backers with money is Bill Gates foundation and George Soros.No surprises here.
So looks like it will be the case that no amount of lawyers are going to be any help to us – this is what I have been saying has been happening in the courts from very early on in this crisis – courts have been “nobbled” and you have provided the proof of that swedenborg. It seems that if those in this scam – WHO – Gates – Fauci – Big Pharma – spray enough money at enough targets and have them all bought up all sorts of “rights” which would ordinarily protect us get cancelled.
I’m torn between feeling despair, as yet again it’s proven that children have absolutely NO value to society, do not belong to their parents and are incredibly vulnerable, and being fascinated to see what happens next.
Because in a civil setting, you’ll need to PROVE on a balance of probabilities that
a.) vaccines are safe and effective
b.) the underlying assumption that public health is benefitted by them is in fact correct
c.) it is realistic to expect healthy children to bear the brunt of protecting the vulnerable – which is as preposterous as expecting young children to protect the elderly from COVID-19 by giving up a year’s worth of schooling
And frankly, the evidence emerging of the cavalier manner in which vaccines are developed, tested and the monitored won’t withstand court scrutiny. But most importantly, it won’t withstand public scrutiny. And you can’t make a public health defence for vaccines without opening up your inner working for public scrutiny. The public after all pays for the cost of the care to the vaccine damaged child, which can run to millions quite easily. This links back to point (c.) is it right to steal money from taxpayers to fund the care for the vaccine damaged when it was avoidable? Is it right to blunt the prospects of the healthy by making them foot the cost, when the decisions were made without their involvement?
Most damaging of all though is that, as the likes of Robert F Kennedy pry the lids off of vaccine post-marketing surveillance, it’s becoming clear that, at best none was done, and at worst the evidence of damage has been destroyed.
I hope those families go back to their domestic courts and argue that the pharmaceutical companies need to be fully transparent, in exchange for the indemnity they enjoy.
But it really isn’t a precedent-making judgement when you really look at it. It simply means that a court to whom Britons would have been very unlikely to resort anyway, would have upheld domestic law provided it didn’t exceed the reasonability threshold.
And realistically, it doesn’t. Because pre-school education is about getting women back to work. Preschools are also foul cesspits of disease, (not totally dissimilar to care homes for the elderly). So a vaccination programme addressing the most virulent of these diseases might arguably be proportionate, (providing the potential damage from these interventions did not exceed the damage from the disease itself). Pre-schools are not about the best interests of the child. They are a commercial setting selling childcare. As it stands, most children’s best interests are served by skipping pre-school and KS1, and staying at home in a family setting. In this context, when going to Primary school, the govt in question is not denying education in any case.
As a Home Educator, I’m fascinated by this whole thing. HE kids are massively healthier than their school counterparts, (even the ones who come in with health issues). They’re a broad mix of vaccinated, partially vaccinated, and completely unvaccinated. They’re much more likely to have been breastfed, but not always. They are taller, and there is very little obesity.
We have a couple of families that came to get away from the nasal flu vaccine issue, (spray live virus up the nose, make the child and it’s family sick, then threaten with a fine for poor attendance). Most to avoid bullying problems, until this year when school anxiety and depression became the biggest driver.
They all marvel at how much healthier and happier their kids are now that they are out. They are also surprised that the well-being (or lack thereof) of their children can have had such a profound effect on parental mental health. So even though they have had to take a cut in external indicators of well-being, like large homes and cars, they all feel better.
Which begs the question of what the purpose of destroying the early years with excessive vaccination and excessive educational prescription is? I’d love to see the public health benefits of vaccination for school argued in a court. Because actually I think it would fail any test. And the only answer is to allow people the freedom to choose the interventions they want, or watch the economy slowly collapse as all but the poorest choose small families, and one-parent working, to protect the only thing that really matters – children.
It has yet to be determined in the British Courts. The consent process for a minor is via parent or guardian but there is case law to mandate MMR as it is proven to give health benefit to the minor. However in a disease such as COVID19 with essentially no risk to the minor but with an unknown risk long and short-term from the vaccine- vaccination consent is quasi ethical. The now published concern with thrombosis with vaccination be it association rather than causation requires an urgent and Public response on behalf of those minors who have no vote. Is the Government seriously suggesting under 16’s should have a vaccine to go on holiday?
Just want to point out that this was about vaccines for polio, hepatitis B, tetanus, etc. not covid19. In this climate it’s important to state that clearly in title or subtitle.
I’m definitely against (directly or indirectly) mandatory covid-19 vaccines, especially for healthy young and middle-aged people who have infinitesimal small risk from covid19, and vaccines were rushed and should have taken many years to test properly (but were not).
For these other well-known disease that affect children and respective vaccines, I don’t have a string opinion either way. I would vaccinate my children for polio, etc. but forcing others to do it… I don’t know…
As we can see the concept “public health safety trumps individual rights” can be severely abused like is being done for covid19. If individual rights were put on a higher pedestal in the first place, then these lockdowns, restrictions and talks of vaccine passports would be much harder to accept.
Here’s the part of the original text:
“The Czech government sees no connection or implications from the ruling for its coronavirus immunization strategy, since Covid-19 vaccination isn’t mandatory, said Health Ministry spokeswoman Barbora Peterova.
Four out of five families in Thursday’s appeal went to the ECHR after challenges to nursery school bans were rejected by Czech authorities. In the first case, a Czech citizen was fined for refusing to have his two teenage children vaccinated against polio, hepatitis B and tetanus.”
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