Act of Settlement challenge

London - The Guardian newspaper is to back a legal challenge to the 300-year-old law banning Roman Catholics and other non-Protestants…

London - The Guardian newspaper is to back a legal challenge to the 300-year-old law banning Roman Catholics and other non-Protestants from succession to the British throne, on the grounds that it clashes with the Human Rights Act and should be reinterpreted or removed from the statute book. A leading British human rights lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson, believes the British Act of Settlement 1701 may be affected by the European convention on human rights, which came into effect two months ago.