What are the duties under the Human Rights Act?

The Human Rights Act places a duty on public authorities to respect, protect and fulfil our human rights across their actions, decisions, policies and services.

The duty to respect people’s human rights means that public authorities must not restrict them or try to breach them. This is known as a negative duty. It means that staff should avoid interfering with someone’s rights unless it is absolutely necessary to protect that person or others from harm.

The duty to protect people’s human rights means that by law, public authorities must step in and take positive action to protect people from harm. This is known as a positive obligation. It could involve protecting a person from harm by another, non-official person, for example a family member or carer. This duty is usually called safeguarding. It could occur in domestic abuse cases, where the police are aware of what is happening but fail to step in and prevent any further harm from occurring.

The duty to fulfil people’s human rights means investigating when things have gone wrong and putting measures in place to stop it from happening again. This is also known as a procedural duty. It means that public authorities should take steps to strengthen access to and the realisation of human rights. This was the duty used by the Hillsborough families to get justice through an inquest.

These duties apply to all the rights in the Human Rights Act. The public authorities that we work with tell us that they do not see these duties as a burden, but rather as an important tool to help them make rights-respecting decisions.