CCR seminar: Human rights in theory and practice in criminal justice

Throughout semesters 1 and 2 in 2025-26, CCR seminars will explore the UN Sustainability Goal 16 of peace, justice and strong institutions. As noted by the UN, this goal “is about promoting peaceful and inclusive societies, providing access to justice for all and building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. People everywhere should be free of fear from all forms of violence and feel safe as they go about their lives, whatever their ethnicity, faith or sexual orientation.” The UN also goes on to note that responses to injustice, conflict and insecurity include strong institutions, such as government, civil society and communities, who need to work together to find the most appropriate solutions, such as through the rule of law including human rights and by combating corruption.

The first seminar of the year and on this theme is on 'Human rights in theory and practice in Criminal Justice'

Speakers: Dr Richard Martin (LSE) and Dr Marie Hutton (University of Sheffield)
Chair: Prof. Layla Skinns, Director of CCR

Title: Police Power after the Human Rights Act 1998 – 25 years on

Twenty-five years after the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force, its impact on British policing remains poorly understood. The breadth of police powers, combined with evolving human rights jurisprudence, has obscured clear assessment of this relationship. Through systematic analysis of post-HRA case law, this paper reveals how judicial encounters with police power have operated through four distinct mechanisms: tempering power (constraining routine police authorities); enabling power (authorizing contested police actions); legitimating power (validating the exercise of state authority); and channelling power (imposing positive obligations that direct investigative priorities). These encounters demonstrate that rather than simply constraining state power, human rights law has created a more complex regulatory framework that both limits and structures police authority in previously unrecognized ways. This analysis challenges assumptions about human rights as purely protective, revealing instead how rights discourse has become integral to the legitimation and exercise of modern police power.

Biography: Dr Richard Martin is an Associate Professor at LSE Law School. Researching at the intersection of criminal justice, human rights and public law, his latest work explores the areas of pre-charge bail, the law of protest, and the legacy of the Human Rights Act 1998 on policing.