BRITAIN’S most senior judge insisted yesterday that human rights “should be nurtured and treasured.”

Supreme Court president Lord Neuberger made the comments in a speech about the Magna Carta, before its 800th anniversary next month.

He described the modern notion of human rights as “fundamental to a modern, civilised and democratic society.”
His comments come amid a debate over the Tories’ controversial plans to scrap the Human Rights Act.

Lord Neuberger cited the fundamental freedoms, such as rights to life, to liberty and to a fair trial, freedoms from torture, forced labour and discrimination and freedoms of religion, expression and association.

“The great majority of educated, so-called right-thinking people today would take all these freedoms for granted,” he said.

“But you don’t have to go back very far to find a time when every one of these freedoms simply did not exist.”