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With all the vitriol, ridicule and scorn it attracts, it’s easy to forget the Human Rights Act is a force for good. Although the law only came into force in 2000, it incorporates the post-war European Convention On Human Rights, inspired by Sir Winston Churchill.

Ironic when it’s his Tory party that now want to axe it.

Civil liberties champion Michael Mansfield QC says: “If the Human Rights Act were scrapped people would soon realise how our daily lives benefit whether it’s in health, people in care, child abuse and so many other issues.”

But with the amount of flak it’s facing, it’s time to ape the classic “Romans” scene in the Monty Python’s Life of Brian and answer the question: What has the Human Rights Act ever done for us?

It stops unfair extradition

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An obsession with UFOs saw Aspergers Syndrome sufferer Gary McKinnon hack into Pentagon and Nasa computers. US prosecutors tried to extradite him and he faced a 60-year jail term.

Following a 10-year fight by his family, Home Secretary Theresa May blocked the request in 2012 under Article 3 of the Human Rights Act which forbids “degrading treatment or punishment”. She said Gary, 46, of Notts, was seriously ill and he would probably commit suicide if taken to the States.

It protects our soldiers

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Servicemen and women sent off to war without the correct equipment can now use the Human Rights Act to sue the government.

The UK Supreme Court ruled that relatives of four servicemen who died in Iraq had a right to life when they died inside the lightly-armoured Snatch Land Rovers, nicknamed “mobile coffins.” At least 37 UK soldiers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan inside these vehicles.

It gives us the right to have children

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Beth Warren won the right to have a child using her dead husband’s sperm thanks to Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, which enshrines respect for for privacy and family life.

After he died in 2012 a sample frozen before he had cancer treatment was due to be destroyed under existing rules until Beth, 28, used the act to block the move. Now the sperm will be frozen until 2023, giving her the choice of when to start a family.

It provides justice to rape victims

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In 2009 Cambridgeshire Police had to pay compensation to a rape victim with bipolar disorder after admitting they destroyed crucial CCTV footage and lost records of her complaint in piles of paperwork.

And earlier this year two victims of convicted rapist John Worboys won a compensation claim against the Metropolitan Police citing Article 3 of the Human Rights Act forbidding degrading treatment or punishment.

One woman claimed the London cab driver raped her in 2003, the other in 2007, but neither complaint was fully probed. Over a six-year period he is believed have attacked more than 105 women and he was jailed for life in 2009.

It protects victims of domestic violence

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The Human Rights Act is increasingly used to fight cases where local authorities unfairly separate families. The London Irish Women’s Centre helped a woman who constantly moved to avoid a violent husband.

When she arrived in the capital social services claimed she was an unfit mother who had intentionally made the family homeless. Using Article 8 of the Act, respecting family life, she was able to fight an attempt to have her children taken into foster care.

It stops Big Brother spying on us

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When a Dorset mum was put under surveillance by her council to see if her family lived in the right school catchment area, she won a tribunal using the Human Rights Act.

Jenny Paton was spied on 22 times by education officials and, as a result, she claimed they’d breached Article 8 of the Act respecting privacy and family life. The surveillance of a mother and her children was described as sinister by human rights group Liberty.

It supports the right to protest against war

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It took 10 years, but campaigners prevented from joining a protest against the Iraq War in 2003 were told by a judge they’d had their rights violated by Gloucestershire Police. They were heading for RAF Fairford on board coaches which were stopped and sent back to London under heavy police escort, even forbidden to stop to answer calls of nature.

In February last year at Central London County Court Judge David Mitchell said the protesters had their rights to freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly under the Human Rights Act breached.

It guards against slavery

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A family of millionaire travellers was jailed in 2012 at Bristol Crown Court for running a slavery ring. William Connors, 52, wife Mary, 48, sons John, 29, James, 20, and son-in-law Miles, 24, forced junkies and alcoholics to work on building sites for no pay and kept them in squalid conditions.

Article 4 of the Human Rights Act, which prohibits slavery and forced labour, was used to win an apology and compensation from police who ignored a woman who was kept as a slave in the UK.

She complained of being kept against her will in 2008 but Hertfordshire Police did nothing for two years, during which time she endured more servitude and sexual assaults. Three people were found guilty of offences including assault, rape and threats to kill.

It helps expose fatal failings in the system

The Act’s Article 1 protects the right to life and any deaths caused by the state must be investigated.

This was initially denied to the family of 19-year-old Zahid Mubarek, who was beaten to death by a racist cellmate in a youth detention facility in the year 2000.

It took campaigners six more years, but by using the Act they gained a full inquiry which highlighted the failings which led up to the Asian teenager’s tragic death.