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The Promise Beneath Every Right

Writer: Charley Bickers
Charley Bickers
2 days ago
5 min read

Article 1 is the one right you won't find in the Human Rights Act. That's because the whole Act exists to keep it.

Edition 1, first published 17 October 2026.

Open the Human Rights Act 1998 at Schedule 1 and look for Article 1 of the Convention. You won’t find it.

The list starts at Article 2. That isn’t an oversight. Article 1 is missing because the whole Act exists to deliver it.

And it’s the Article that decides whether every other right is a promise or just a sentence.

What the right says

Article 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights reads, in full:

“The High Contracting Parties shall secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in Section I of this Convention.”

The “High Contracting Parties” are the states that signed up, including the UK. Section I is the list of rights that follows: life, liberty, a fair hearing, family life, equal treatment and the rest.

What it means in plain English

The state promises to make every right real for everyone within its reach.

Three words carry the weight.

“Secure.” Not just “respect”, and not just “don’t interfere”. Securing a right can mean taking active steps to protect it. Lawyers call these positive obligations.

“Everyone.” Not only citizens or adults. Every child, every mother, every father.

“Within their jurisdiction.” Wherever the state has authority, its promise applies.

Why Article 1 isn’t in the Human Rights Act

When the Bill went through Parliament, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, explained why Article 1 (and Article 13, the right to an effective remedy) were left out of the list. The Act, he said, “gives effect to Article 1 by securing to people in the United Kingdom the rights and freedoms of the Convention.”

In other words, the Human Rights Act is how the UK keeps its Article 1 promise at home.

It works mainly through section 6, which makes it unlawful for any public authority to act incompatibly with a Convention right. Section 6(3) says expressly that “public authority” includes a court or tribunal. Cafcass, local authority children’s services and the police are public authorities too.

So when a family judge makes an order, when a Cafcass officer writes a report, or when a council plans a child’s care, each one is carrying out the UK’s Article 1 promise. Or failing to.

How it applies in the Family Court

The European Court has spelled out what “secure” means for children.

In A v United Kingdom (1998), a boy was repeatedly beaten with a garden cane by his stepfather. The stepfather was prosecuted, but a jury acquitted him on the defence of “reasonable chastisement”. The Court held that Article 1, read with Article 3, requires states to take measures to ensure that people are not subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment, “including such ill-treatment administered by private individuals”. UK law hadn’t protected him. That was a violation.

In Z and Others v United Kingdom (2001), a local authority knew for years that four siblings were suffering serious neglect and abuse at home, but didn’t act effectively. The Grand Chamber found that the state had failed in its duty to protect them.

The lesson cuts both ways. Article 1 means the state must protect children from harm. It also means, as later editions will show, that the state must take reasonable steps to protect a child’s relationship with a safe parent. Doing nothing isn’t neutral.

Where the promise falls short

A promise is only as good as the remedy behind it.

In SW v United Kingdom (2021), a family court judge made serious adverse findings about a social worker’s professional conduct without giving her a fair chance to respond. The Court of Appeal later set them aside. But section 9(3) of the Human Rights Act blocks damages for judicial acts done in good faith, so she had no effective remedy at home. Strasbourg found a breach of Article 13, read with Article 8.

In October 2026 Parliament began to close that gap. A Commons committee debated a draft remedial order on 12 October 2026, and the Commons approved it the next day. The House of Lords approved it on 29 October 2026, so both Houses have now approved it. It will allow damages where a judge’s act breaches the procedural fairness Article 8 requires, and it comes into force the day after it is made. The Joint Committee on Human Rights said the order was in “unnecessarily narrow terms”, but recommended that both Houses approve it, because it “would remove the specific incompatibility identified in the SW case”. The Government kept it narrow, but committed to a separate review of how section 9(3) works.

That review matters to families, not only to professionals. Parents and children are also on the receiving end of judicial decisions.

Why it matters for equality and children

“Everyone” is the most powerful word in the Convention. It doesn’t say “everyone except fathers”, “everyone except unmarried parents” or “everyone except children too young to speak for themselves”.

Read with Article 14’s ban on discrimination, that one word is why the duty to respond to abuse applies whatever the victim’s sex. It’s why a child’s own voice and relationships count. It’s why a court, as a public authority, must apply the same rights to both parents. And it’s why a police officer taking a report owes the same duty to a father as to a mother.

What you can do

  • Know who’s bound. Courts, Cafcass, local authorities and the police are all public authorities under section 6.

  • Ask how rights were considered. If a public body makes a decision about your family, ask in writing how it took your Convention rights, and your child’s, into account.

  • Use the proper routes. Every public authority has a complaints procedure, and most have an independent ombudsman or regulator above it. In court, raise Convention rights in writing (Family Procedure Rules 2010, rule 29.5), with legal advice if you can.

  • Ask your MP one question. Will the promised review of section 9(3) consider parents and children, as well as professionals?

This series is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

Charley Bickers, Founder of UN For Men - The United Global Alliance For Men & Boys

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