DOMINIC RAAB’S major reforms to the Human Rights Act unveiled today will result in more families being “ripped apart,” campaigners have warned. 

The Justice Secretary said the plans will prevent non-British nationals who have committed crimes from “abusing the system” by restricting their ability to fight deportation on the grounds of the right to a family life to stay in the country. 

Under the reforms, those convicted of any “imprisonable” crime of “terror-related activity,” could lose the ability to mount the defence.

Mr Raab said: “We can prevent serious criminals from relying on Article 8 — the right to a family life — to frustrate their deportation from this country.”

He told the Commons that Article 8 claims make up “around 70 per cent” of all successful human rights challenges by “foreign national offenders” against deportation orders. 

The reforms, which will be introduced in the new “Bill of Rights,” have been met with a fierce backlash from lawyers and campaigners who branded the changes a “blatant, unashamed power grab.” 

Liberty director Martha Spurrier said: “They are quite literally rewriting the rules in their favour so they become untouchable.”

Anti-racism campaigner Zita Holbourne, a leading figure in campaigns against deportations, told the Morning Star that the changes were deeply concerning. 

She said: “Many people are criminalised by virtue of their immigration status and others through having no recourse to public funds or because of issues relating to racism, injustice and poverty.

“This is a deliberate plan to further reduce human rights and dehumanise people, tearing families apart.”

Mr Raab also faced calls to provide evidence to justify the changes. 

SNP human rights spokesman Brendan O’Hara told MPs: “This government regularly tells us that abuses of the system are the reason for all manner of reforms of legislation that simply don’t suit them. 

“Where is the empirical evidence for this enormous change and where can we see it?”

Mr Raab insisted that the evidence had been set out “at some length.”

Labour shadow justice secretary Steve Reed branded the proposals “all mouth and no trousers,” saying: “They do nothing to deal with the severe failings in the criminal justice system.”