A Challenge to the Establishment

The Human Rights Act 1998 received Royal Assent on 2 October 2000 and has already provoked intense analysis and debate. The potential issues that arise from the impact of this Act on the Inland Revenue's current investigation procedures and practices have already been widely debated. However few if any have offered practical advice on how practitioners and their clients should react. It is the purpose of this article to set out the implications of the Act in relation to tax-geared penalties for fraudulent or negligent conduct and to consider the appropriate response that should be adopted.

The basics

The effect of the Human Rights Act is to make certain provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights directly enforceable in the United Kingdom courts. Section 1 of and Schedule 1 to the Human Rights Act 1998 set out the Convention rights ...