The BBC has learned that the government is calling for the European Convention on Human Rights to be substantially rewritten so that national courts have a much greater say over how it is applied.

Conservative MP Dominic Raab told the Today programme's James Naughtie that he wanted to see modest reforms which would mean the Strasbourg court is less keen to "interfere and rewrite laws made by elected parliamentarians".

However, director of Liberty Shami Chakrabarti disagreed, saying this was not a modest reform and the "troubling" part is to suggest that although member states have implemented a Human Rights Act, they are no longer subject to the scrutiny of the court in Strasbourg.

"If you want to continue to promote human rights to younger democracies in Europe you have to set an example by subjecting yourself to the kind of scrutiny that we should be proud to subject ourselves" in the Court of Human Rights, she said.

But Dominic Raab said that "this was not about muzzling the Court of Human Rights" but rather that it was about being very sure that the Supreme Court has got it wrong before intervening.

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