Human Rights Day 2025: Our everyday essentials

Human rights are often perceived as abstract legal principles, distant from the realities of everyday life. Some political figures characterise them as obstacles to effective governance rather than essential protections. Yet this characterisation misrepresents their role in society.

In reality, human rights protections are embedded throughout our public services and institutions. The Human Rights Act made the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) enforceable under UK law, imposing duties on all public authorities to respect Convention rights in their decision-making. This legal obligation has fostered a rights-respecting culture where human rights considerations are built into everyday decisions, not just applied retrospectively through courts. From the way hospitals maintain patient dignity to the measures that prevent workplace discrimination, these protections shape everyday life and make sure individuals are treated with respect.

Today is Human Rights Day. This year’s theme, ‘Our Everyday Essentials’, emphasises precisely this point: human rights are not aspirational ideals, but the fundamental protections woven into our daily lives. Given the ongoing debate about the UK’s relationship with the ECHR, it has become increasingly important to recognise the tangible, everyday ways in which these protections benefit us all, and what we stand to lose if those protections are weakened or removed.

Humanists have been frequent users of the Human Rights Act to establish our rights as non-religious people – in areas as wide-ranging as education, marriage laws, and pastoral support. But in this article, we consider some wider uses of the Act and Convention and how they provide those essential protections we all need every day.

Dignity and privacy at work

For decades, being LGBT was considered incompatible with military service. Jeanette Smith and Graeme Grady experienced the impact of this policy when, in 1994, military investigators discovered their sexual orientation. Both were subjected to intrusive questioning about their relationships before being dismissed from careers they had worked hard to build.

Together with two other service members, Duncan Lustig-Prean and John Beckett, they challenged the Ministry of Defence’s policy in UK courts, arguing it was irrational and breached the ECHR. When their domestic challenge failed, they took their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

The European Court found that the investigations into their private lives and their dismissals violated the right to respect for private and family life. The Ministry of Defence claimed that excluding LGBT people was necessary for morale and operational effectiveness, but the Court rejected these arguments. The judges described the investigations as ‘exceptionally intrusive’ and criticised the ‘absolute and general character of the policy’, which led to ‘especially grave interferences with their private lives.’

On 27 September 1999, the ban was declared unlawful, transforming the armed forces for a generation of LGBT+ personnel. Today, LGBT people serve openly throughout the military, contributing their talents without fear of investigation or dismissal.

The principles upheld in this judgment extend far beyond the armed forces. They affirm that everyone, in any workplace, has the right to dignity, privacy, and freedom from discrimination based on who they are. No one should face intrusive scrutiny or unfair treatment because of their identity.

Protecting vulnerable patients

Susan, a patient with learning disabilities, was admitted to hospital after a fall. She brought with her a beloved doll, which provided comfort and security in an unfamiliar and stressful environment. During a family visit, they discovered that the doll had been broken. They believed that staff had deliberately damaged it to punish Susan for not following instructions.

The family raised the issue with the hospital, but their concerns were dismissed. The hospital refused to apologise or conduct an investigation, leaving Susan’s family with no way to ensure her safety and dignity. The incident had a serious impact on Susan, who became withdrawn and refused to eat. Concerned about her well-being, her family contacted lawyers to seek accountability.

Legal action established that deliberately destroying a vulnerable patient’s personal possession could constitute inhuman and degrading treatment. The hospital settled the case out of court, providing compensation to Susan and agreeing to review the incident to make sure it would not happen to anyone else.

Human rights protections play a crucial role in everyday care. Susan’s doll was not just a toy but an essential source of emotional support. By challenging the hospital’s response, her family helped strengthen safeguards for other vulnerable patients. The ECHR provides a framework to hold institutions accountable, ensuring that all individuals, regardless of disability or vulnerability, are treated with respect and protected from harm in the services they rely on every day.

Protecting children at school

In the early 1980s, corporal punishment was still permitted in Scottish state schools, where teachers could use a leather strap, called the tawse, to discipline pupils. For Grace Campbell and Jane Cosans, this practice conflicted fundamentally with their beliefs about how children should be treated.

Grace asked her local council for a guarantee that corporal punishment would not be used against her seven-year-old son, Gordon. The council refused. Jane’s fifteen-year-old son, Jeffrey, declined to accept being struck with the strap for taking a shortcut through a cemetery on his way home from school. As a result, he was suspended and never returned to that school.

Both mothers took their case to the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that the UK’s policy violated their rights as parents. The Court ruled that by permitting corporal punishment in state schools, the authorities had breached the mothers’ right to have their children educated in accordance with their own philosophical convictions.

This judgment contributed to the eventual abolition of corporal punishment in UK schools. Today, no child in school can be subjected to physical punishment, a protection that millions of parents and children benefit from without even realising its origins.

What’s at stake

The human rights protections we have examined are now under threat. Both Reform UK  and the Conservatives have suggested withdrawal from the ECHR, while proposals have also been put forward by the Government to weaken Articles 3 and 8 – the very provisions that delivered justice in some of these cases.

This Human Rights Day, we must recognise these are not abstract principles, but everyday essentials that protect us all.