Sections 4 and 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998

Sections 4 and 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998 are provisions that enable the Human Rights Act 1998 to take effect in the United Kingdom. Section 4 allows courts to issue a declaration of incompatibility where it is impossible to use section 3 to interpret primary or subordinate legislation so that their provisions are compatible with the articles of the European Convention of Human Rights, which are also part of the Human Rights Act. In these cases, interpretation to comply may conflict with legislative intent. It is considered a measure of last resort. A range of superior courts can issue a declaration of incompatibility.

A declaration of incompatibility is not binding on the parties to the proceedings in which it is made, nor can a declaration invalidate legislation. Section 4 therefore achieves its aim through political rather than legal means, including through Section 10 which allows the government to amend legislation without full legislative approval. A remedial order can only be made after a declaration of incompatibility or a similar finding of a European court with all appeals must have been complete or expressly renounced. Parliament has used Section 10 to make small adjustments where possible to bring legislation into line with Convention rights although entirely new pieces of legislation are sometimes necessary.

Human rights are rights taken to be universal, of considerable importance, and relate to the individual and not collectively; among other things, they can grant freedoms, claims, immunities and powers. The European Convention on Human Rights was drawn up in the wake of the Second World War to uphold such rights. The United Kingdom ratified the European Convention on Human Rights in 1951, and accepted the right of individual petition to the European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg, in 1966. The Human Rights Act 1998 made most Convention rights directly enforceable in a British court for the first time. Excluded are Articles 1 and 13, which the government argued were fulfilled by the Act itself, and therefore were not relevant to rights enforced under it. The Human Rights Act has had a considerable effect on British law, and remains an Act of "fundamental constitutional importance".

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