‘Writing only weeks before the (re)scheduled date of UK withdrawal from the EU, there seems little of which to be certain: it is still uncertain whether the UK will withdraw on a ‘No-Deal’ basis, or under a Withdrawal Agreement. Whatever the process of withdrawal, however, there should be no doubt that it will have a negative impact on the system of rights protection in the UK. Beyond the immediate loss of rights and remedies which arise directly from EU membership, the legal process of withdrawal has already indicated this negative impact: under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights will not be retained, just as general principles (including recognisably fundamental rights) are retained only where they have been recognised by EU case law but given no right of action or remedy. The 2018 Act also follows similar Brexit legislation in delegating wide legislative power to the executive (unprecedented in scale and scope) to amend or repeal retained EU law. While the cumulative effect of Brexit is as yet near-impossible to fully gauge, the aim of this post is to introduce four categories of risk to the protection of rights posed by the Brexit process.’
Oxford Human Rights Hub, 7th October 2019
Source: ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk
