How does the SC defend our rights?

The process allows groups to challenge the actions of, for example, government ministers, police officers or local councils – it is the role of the judiciary to uphold the rule of law and ensure that such bodies act within the law.
In 1974, there were just 160 applications for judicial review in England and Wales. This had risen to 4,539 applications by 1998, and then over 11,000 by 2012.
In the case R (Evans) v Attorney General (2015), the Supreme Court ordered the release of letters written by Prince Charles to government departments, after the Attorney General tried to veto their release and overturn the decision of an Upper Tribunal headed by a High Court judge.
The Justices argued that while the Freedom of Information Act (2000) gives ministers a veto that can overturn the Information Commissioner, the decisions of a judicial body “should be final and binding”.

The HRA incorporated the rights listed in the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law, making it much easier for citizens to defend their human rights, as they no longer had to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Judges can be asked to review the ‘proportionality’ of decisions and actions taken by public authorities that impact qualified human rights, to decide whether the impact on individual rights is proportionate to the likely benefits of the measure.
The HRA also allows the Supreme Court to interpret existing legislation so that it complies with human rights.
In R v Secretary of State for the Home Department (2014) the Supreme Court ruled that the inclusion of minor convictions and cautions on enhanced criminal records checks, introduced by the Police Act (1997), was incompatible with the Article 8 right to privacy. Parliament then amended the law with a remedial order (a procedure introduced by the HRA that allows incompatible laws to be amended quickly)

If UK citizens feel that their rights have not been protected in UK courts, they can take their case to the European Court of Human Rights, which was established in 1959 to help uphold the rights listed in the European Convention on Human Rights.
After the Court of Appeal did not award a British Airways employee any damages in Eweida v British Airways (2010), she appealed to the ECtHR. Eweida had been sent home on unpaid leave for refusing to cover up her necklace of the Christian cross, which the ECtHR ruled in 2013 violated her Article 9 right to observe a religion.
215 of the 390 cases admitted from 1999 and 2010 resulted in a judgement that the UK had violated the ECHR.
Compared to other nations under the jurisdiction of the ECtHR, the UK has amongst the lowest number of cases brought against it and loses far fewer than many other countries, suggesting that the UK is already successfully upholding rights and civil liberties.