Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood was immediately rebuffed by Europe after calling for a shake-up of human rights laws.
She used a speech in Strasbourg to set out how the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) ‘feels out of step with common sense’ and needed to ‘evolve’.
But the head of the Council of Europe – the organisation which drew up the ECHR 75 years ago – said the treaty should not be used as a ‘scapegoat’ and insisted he did not support any moves to amend it.
Ms Mahmood said: ‘There is a growing perception – sometimes mistaken, sometimes grounded in reality – that human rights are no longer a shield for the vulnerable, but a tool for criminals to avoid responsibility.
‘That the law too often protects those who break the rules, rather than those who follow them.’
