9/11 consequently demonstrated a vulnerability to terrorism, both national and personal. The ‘need to protect’, was evidenced by the swift enactment of the ATCSA 2001. Risk and threat rhetoric was underpinned by a sense that everything could change imminently. This ‘need to protect’ escalated the perception that a ‘balance’ between security and rights was operational. This thesis focuses on three pieces of UK anti-terror legislation throughout the period of 2001-2006. It argues that while the term ‘balance’ is often used to describe how legislation is legitimised in favour of rights or security, the process of ‘balance’ is less explicit through political debate than may be expected. This thesis uses a mixed method approach consisting of both qualitative and quantitative methods. This was informed by the parliamentary debate located in Hansard. Whereas the quantitative data collected presented a broad overview of debate from the House of Commons during 2001-2006 specific to rights and security, the qualitative assessment reduced the breadth of review and focused on one case study from each of the acts examined. This examination highlighted various influences between conceptual interpretations and the allocation of roles with the constitutional framework in the UK. Seven key observations emerged through which this research established that there are too many influences on parliamentary debate to be able to ascertain precise data of how parliament actively creates legislation. This is further complicated by the existence of a number of shortfalls in the validation process of legislation within the UK parliamentary system. These findings pave the way for a review of human rights law incorporation within the UKs constitutional framework.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:600148 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Lumb, Sam |
| Contributors | Williams, Katherine ; Harding, Christopher |
| Publisher | Aberystwyth University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/2160/d5f22096-a765-4c40-b66a-41e20d945c8c |
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