Proportionality Under the UK Human Rights Act

The principle of proportionality has long been the key mechanism in Europe for deciding whether state action has encroached on human rights. Prior to the UK’s adoption of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA), proportionality enjoyed only sparing patronage by UK courts, and then typically only when EU obligations required it. The HRA, however, by making the ECHR enforceable in UK courts, has introduced proportionality into UK public law to a degree some have called irreversible. Recent empirical re…