Scottish Human Rights Commission

Scotland does not provide strong enough safeguards for restrictive practices in adult mental healthcare.

We are recommending that the Scottish Government must urgently take action to strengthen the law, introduce independent scrutiny and investigate the use of restrictive practices in mental health hospitals.

Find out more:https://www.scottishhumanrights.com/media/3361/briefingpaper-policy-restrictivepracticesinplacesofdetention-24092026.pdf

We have signed a new Strategic Framework Agreement with the Equality and Human Rights Commission setting out how we work together to protect and promote human rights in Scotland.

Read more:
https://www.scottishhumanrights.com/news/scottish-human-rights-commission-and-ehrc-sign-new-strategic-framework-agreement/

We highlighted a growing accountability gap between what the government says about human rights and what is actually happening to people’s day to day lives, at today's Equalities Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee roundtable at The Scottish Parliament.

Dr Michael O’Flaherty, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, shares a message of support following his visit to Scotland last week.

"This is important and innovative work, and obviously it's badly needed because the issue of poverty is a serious one, here in Scotland."

Read our latest report on poverty and human rights in Scotland ➡️
https://www.scottishhumanrights.com/projects-and-programmes/spotlight-projects/poverty-and-human-rights/

Council of Europe Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights

A look back at Thursday's visit from Dr Michael O'Flaherty Council of Europe Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights.

Thank you to the Commissioner for coming to Scotland, and everyone who joined the lecture, discussion and conversations throughout the day.

Yesterday we welcomed Dr Michael O’Flaherty Council of Europe Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights to Edinburgh. He delivered a lecture on the state of human rights in Scotland and across Europe.

The Commissioner also joined a panel discussion exploring how human rights can help alleviate poverty with Professor Angela O'Hagan, Nicola Killean from Children and Young People's Commissioner Scotland and Satwat Rehman from One Parent Families Scotland alongside human rights defenders from across Scotland.

Happy Scottish Learning Disability Week!

Lots of people, including people with learning disabilities, use Easy Reads to help them access important information in a clear and understandable way.

We want every person in Scotland to know about their human rights. That is why we make Easy Reads for all our most important reports.

Now, we have brought all the SHRC's Easy Read reports together into one page on our website.
To find out more about your human rights, click on the Easy Read icon at the top of our website or click the link below ⬇️

https://ow.ly/2QON50ZIPxI

Human rights can be a solution to poverty 📢

Almost one million people in Scotland are living in poverty. People are hungry. People are homeless or living in inadequate housing and cannot access vital services like healthcare and social security.

But poverty is not inevitable. It is the result of failures by the Scottish Government and other public bodies to meet their human rights obligations.

Today, we launch our new Poverty Spotlight with a policy paper which calls for the Scottish Government to take a human rights based approach to tackling poverty.

Read the new policy paper or find out more about the project on our website:
https://ow.ly/t5zA50ZGE7i

We have submitted a new treaty monitoring report to the Council of Europe on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM).

Read the report on our website:https://www.scottishhumanrights.com/media/3345/itmmainreport-itm-nationalminorities-fcnm-2026.pdf