The European Court of Human Rights is a threat to British law that must be dealt with

The most underreported story of the past few weeks has been Lord Hoffmann’s attack on the European Court of Human Rights. Hoffmann, a senior Law Lord, declared in a lecture to the Judicial Studies Board that the court “has been unable to resist the temptation to aggrandise its jurisdiction and to impose uniform rules on Member States. It considers itself the equivalent of the Supreme Court of the United States, laying down a federal law of Europe.”

Hoffmann’s case against the court is that is has neither the legitimacy nor the standing to interfere as it does in domestic law;

“As the case law shows, there is virtually no aspect of our legal system, from land law to social security to torts to consumer contracts, which is not arguably touched at some point by human rights.  But we have not surrendered our sovereignty over all these matters. We remain an independent nation with its own legal system, evolved over centuries of constitutional struggle and pragmatic change.