London--Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday called for an overhaul of British human rights laws as he marked the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta at a ceremony led by Queen Elizabeth II.
The commemoration was held on the meadow in Runnymede, south England, where on June 15, 2015 the queen's distant predecessor King John sealed the foundation document for Western parliamentary democracy.
Addressing the crowd, Cameron said the charter had "shaped the world for the best part of a millennium".
"What happened here eight centuries ago is as relevant today as it was then," he said.
"The seeds sown here have grown throughout the world. In America; in India with Gandhi and South Africa with Nelson Mandela."
Cameron's Conservative government is currently locked in a debate about Britain's human rights legislation.
The party has promised to repeal the existing Human Rights Act, which incorporates the European Convention of Human Rights into British law, and replace it with a British Bill of Rights.
"Here in Britain, ironically -- the place where those ideas were first set out -- the good name of human rights has sometimes become distorted and devalued," Cameron said.
In a Facebook post, he warned that criminals were abusing the current system "with spurious appeal after spurious appeal" and that Britain could not deport "dangerous foreign terror suspects".
"Let's put human rights right," he said.
Campaigners have warned that repealing the Human Rights Act would be a step back for Britain.
AFP
