Is mandatory vaccination in violation of the Human Rights Act?

“In the UK, human rights are protected by the Human Rights Act 1998. The Act gives effect to the human rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights.

Article 8 - the right to respect for your family and private life, your home and your correspondence is one the rights protected by the Human Rights Act.”

(UK Citizens Advice website)

Sounds good. However, there’s a get-out clause:

“Article 8 is a qualified right. This means a public authority can sometimes interfere with your right to respect for private and family life if it’s in the interest of the wider community or to protect other people’s rights.”

So, I suppose the argument put forward by the powers-that-be is that COVID-19 vaccines are being required or mandated in order to protect public safety or the health of other people. Sod your personal bodily autonomy, we’re going to force you to take part in a medical trial against your will because Janet down the road might get sick from the asymptomatic transmission of a virus you don’t know you’ve got.

What does a legal expert say?

Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou, Professor in Human Rights Law at the University of Liverpool, says:

“As it is often the case in human rights law, there is no simple solution here. Compulsory vaccination is an interference with the human right of bodily integrity, which is a part of the right to private life enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as in the European Convention on Human Rights. However, not every interference with this right is automatically illegal.

While forced administering of vaccines will certainly violate human rights, other less brutal forms of compulsory vaccination might not.

The seriousness of sanctions for failure to be vaccinated will also be taken into account. Very high fines or other more brutal forms of punishment, such as imprisonment, will perhaps be difficult to justify. At the same time, temporary suspension of a medical professional might be acceptable if the government can prove that this is done to minimise the risk to their patients.

The government will need to prove if health risk exists, but if it does, then life, health and bodily integrity of the patients are also protected by human rights law and they might prevail. If the proposed policies are spread beyond medical professionals the policymakers will have to specifically justify why mandatory vaccination is necessary more broadly.” (The Conversation, Sept 2021)

A few points that I would make in arguing for my right not to be forced or coerced into taking a vaccination:

1. The current jabs are still in Phase 3 trial phase and have been given temporary approval for use. You can’t force someone to take part in a medical trial.

2. There is no long-term safety data, and I would argue that, given the Yellow Card scheme is currently evidencing a 0.5% risk* of suffering a nervous system disorder – not to mention all the other types of adverse events – the vaccine is more of a risk than the virus to most people. *(5% if only 10% of events are reported, as the government itself asserts)

3. These jabs don’t prevent infection or transmission and seem to wane in effectiveness pretty quickly. So a vaccinated person with a weakened immune system could be far more of a risk than an unvaccinated person with a healthy immune system and adequate vitamin D levels.

4. With a survival rate of well over 99% for the vast majority of the population, can forced vaccination really be justified? Even if the immune system response stimulated by vaccines did kill the virus, which it doesn’t, they’d still be hard-pushed to justify the risk/reward.

5. Medical intervention is only legal if the patient consents, and that consent is only valid if the patient is fully informed. Many people I’ve spoken to think they’ve had something like the flu vaccine – i.e. they’ve been injected with a non-harmful bit of SARS-CoV-2 – and have no idea about mRNA. And very few people seem to know the vaccines haven’t been fully approved and that they are participating in a medical trial. So, I would argue that, in the majority of cases, fully informed consent is not being obtained and therefore these jabs are illegal.

The Human Rights Act also states:

“Some rights can never be restricted. These rights are absolute. Absolute rights include:

• your right not to be tortured or treated in an inhuman or degrading way

• your right to hold religious and non-religious beliefs.

A public authority can never justify breaching an absolute right.”

If I firmly believe that interfering with a perfectly healthy and effective natural immune system is detrimental to my health, does that count as a non-religious belief? (This would be under Article 9: Freedom of thought, conscience and religion.)

Finally, a big question, to which nobody seems to be able to give a satisfactory answer:

If the government or my employer insists I take a vaccine (potentially two, initially, followed by a booster every 6 months) and I suffer an adverse event, who compensates me?

It’s not the pharmaceutical companies and vaccine manufacturers – they’re protected from legal liability in civil cases. So, if you have an adverse reaction, no matter how severe, you can't sue them.

You might be able to access financial assistance through the Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme (VDPS) if you’re severely disabled by a Covid vaccine in the UK. This is not a compensation scheme - it just provides a one-off, tax-free lump sum (currently £120,000), but (and here’s the kicker) you must be at least 60% disabled to qualify. And, of course, you’ve got to be able to prove that the vaccine caused the damage, which could take a long time and a considerable amount of money.

Care home staff already have to be fully vaccinated and the same will apply to frontline NHS and social care staff from 1st April. So it seems that, for healthcare workers, the argument that protecting the health of other people trumps your own right to decide what happens to your body, has been won.

They’ve already tested the application of this assertion in Scotland and Wales, with the introduction of vaccine passports for nightclubs and large events, but you can provide a negative lateral flow test result as an alternative.

Whether they’re brave enough to test the mandatory vaccination argument with society at large remains to be seen…but I suspect the Nudge Unit will do its very best to market the hell out of it.