IT SEEMS, on the face of it, like the final ace in the pack for the band of protestors opposed to Darlington Football Club's expansion plans. If in doubt, play the human rights trump card.

The protestors, the Neasham Road Action Group (NRAG), have fought tooth and nail from the outset to stop millionaire Quakers chairman George Reynolds building a 25,000-seater stadium in a field alongside their homes.

Just as it appears inevitable that construction work would go ahead, NRAG members decide their fundamental rights would be compromised by the development.

It is the buzz-phrase of modern-day society and rolled out in courtrooms across the country. "My rights are being violated". And those five words can turn the sane into the insane, the obvious into the bizarre.

Take the case of the two Sikh militants who were not deported last week, despite Home Secretary Jack Straw considering them a threat to national security. The reason: a judge feared it compromised their rights.

Then there is Westminster Council in London's decision to drop a parking fine after the driver threatened legal action.

And what of the judge in Birmingham who threw out a case against two men accused of dangerous driving after they refused to reveal who was behind the wheel. They claimed it infringed on their right not to implicate themselves in a crime.

October 2, 2000 is a date for the diary. It is the day the country goes barking mad for human rights, according to one Scottish judge.

It is the day the country finally embraces the European Convention on Human Rights as part of Labour's Human Rights Act.

Lord McCluskey describes it as "a field day for crackpots, a pain in the neck for judges and a gold mine for lawyers." It opens the door on challenge after challenge on the fabric of the nation's judiciary, he claims.

Schools are quaking in their boots at the thought they could be hit with multi-million pound bills as parents use the Human Rights Act as a hefty stick to beat out compensation for bullying and harassment suffered by their children.

The National Association of Head Teachers warned yesterday that failure to deal with bullies could count as "degrading treatment" under the Act.

Not true, if you believe one of the country's leading barristers, Ms Cherie Booth QC.

She, in thinly-shrouded New Labour jargon, extols the virtues of a system which, she says, is "as much a matter for education and good citizenship as it is for litigation". It is a stance for which she has come under some criticism, being likened to acting "like a cross between the First Lady and Lady Macbeth.

She adds: "Liberty, equality and community are indivisible. Unless there are strong communities to protect the weak, rights are trampled on by the powerful."

NRAG may be right. Their wishes, their rights, should not be trampled on by the desires of others.

Human rights pressure group, Liberty, certainly sees a place in society for more formal recognition of a person's fundamental needs.

"This (Human Rights Act) gives people, for the first time, rights they are able to enforce through the domestic courts," a spokesperson says. "It gives people rights in time of trouble. That's when you tend to need them."

It is true. Strasbourg will seem a distant place come October as the common citizen can look inland for help when they feel the Government, public authorities, police and countless other organisations are not playing with a straight bat.

Liberty says: "It is to make sure that things are properly balanced, that they are not balanced in favour of the state and not balanced in favour of the individual. That things in life are right."

Colin Warbrick, professor of law at Durham University and specialist in human rights, believes October 2 will probably pass by without anyone even batting an eyelid.

For those embroiled in court proceedings, welfare claims and asylum issues, it may throw out a lifeline that previously did not exist.

But in the main, he believes, the public is already protected by a form of self-monitoring on the Government's part. The floodgates of justice will not burst under a weight of new litigation.

He says: "Judges will not be on some 1960s American Supreme Court crusade for liberalism. There will be big cases, there will be surprising cases, but they will not be frequent."

It begs the question: are people making a big fuss over something which will help a small minority of society and leave the rest largely unaffected?

For NRAG, it is an important issue which could, if successful, bring an end to the town's brave new stadium plans.

For Cherie Booth, it could mean a great, fat rise on top of her already burgeoning salary.

Prof Warbrick says: "For most people, we don't think about our rights, because most of the time we enjoy them."