Is that right?, I freely admit my knowledge of this is not extensive, but my understanding of it is that (given your example above) it does not give blanket immunity, enshrined in the law, but plenty of scope for interpretation by individual states. Hence we get all the complaints of why we don't act in certain ways but other nations do.
The HRA and the ECHR are slightly different. The Human rights act is based on the European convention on human rights, but as you say, the ECHR is open to interpretation.
The issues around the interpretations we have enshrined in law via the HRA are the issue, rather than the responsibilities under the ECHR itself. (Although the ECHR has it's problems, such as having a right to own property where taxation is absolutely excluded, rather than reasonably excluded as state behaviour is in other rights)
The other problems come from the way conflicting rights are handled. For example, the B&B case around trying to force people to serve homosexuals when it was against their religious belief. There is a balance to be found between those two rights, but it was completely failed in the court cases.
The problem comes when in order to deport someone you are sending them to a place where they may be tortured/killed. Now I know a lot of people wouldn;t care about that for say a Terrorist, but that is where it clashes with the intractable HRA right to not be tortured...which on the whole you would say is a good thing.
Again, somewhat cross purposes IMO, the issue of torture isn't one that's come up much among those who want reasonable rewriting of the HRA, because as you say, it's a good thing. However, there are other aspects and conventions that are not being given due weight (such as the Dublin regulation that states clearly that asylum seekers are the responsibility of the country of entry into the EU, not the country they finally claim asylum in) that could be used to improve our handling of immigration and immigrants.
The one that causes the problem is article 8 of the HRA, which is currently being interpreted to mean that if you manage to sneak into the country and have a child before anyone notices, you are exempt from all possibility of deportation, even after criminal activities. This is one of those areas that needs reform.
Anyway, I was being slightly disingenuous with the Theresa May comment, because as usual the headlines and actual proposed policies don't marry. Though, as we know, unfortunately it is the headlines the populous in general go on and I find it laughably ironic when I hear people going on about "Bloody Human Rights" etc etc as though it is a bad thing....generally Daily Mail readers
I agree, and indeed, my main objections to the HRA are more that it doesn't give the general public enough protection, rather than it gives criminals too much protection. Strengthening the protection of the general public will result in both better protection from excesses of state and mob, and better ability to ensure criminals etc are correctly dealt with.
.
