The human rights industry wish list
Sorry, I mean the Bill of Rights Forum final report. Newton Emerson has his look at the potential move from “we the people” to “we the judiciary” Northern Ireland faces.
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The Human Rights industry bears a striking resemblance to Orwell’s Animal Farm. On Animal Farm, despite all the nice talk about equality and fair play, there was huge hypocrisy underneath the surface. The Human Rights industry talks at great length about equality, fairness, justice etc., but beneath the fine talk there is another agenda.
For example, as regards abortion there are three sets of rights – those of the unborn child, those of the mother and those of the father. If the Human Rights industry really was motivated by a desire for fair play for all, it would acknowledge this fact. Instead it ignores the rights of the unborn child and of the father and repeats the usual feminist lines about women’s rights. A great example of such hypocrisy within the Human Rights industry is Amnesty International’s pro – abortion stance while at the same time proclaiming that we should “protect the human”.
Fr Tim Bartlett was fully justified in boycotting the launch of this Bill of Rights draft document because it fails to recognise the rights of the unborn child. The whole Human Rights industry is a coalition of left wing groups looking to impose their views upon the rest of us and, in many cases, over – ride the democratic wishes of the people. If they get what they want, we will have a society where:
1) Abortion is freely available, including the abortion of unborn children with Downs Syndrome, Cleft Palate and Club Foot in very late pregnancy.
2) A society where children’s “rights” trump adult attempts to impose discipline with disastrous consequences as regards discipline and learning in schools. This will have the knock – on effect of greatly reduced discipline on a societal level with increased violence on our streets.
3) A society where radical feminist views against marriage and men hold sway, so that fathers become increasingly marginalised and there is greatly increased divorce and family breakdown.
4) A society where the State has an ever increasing foothold inside the doors of family life, so that parents feel increasingly marginalised. An example of such denigration of parental roles will be the Human Rights industry’s ever increasing zeal to bring in anti – smacking legislation. They will claim this is to “protect” children but it will really be designed to emasculate parents and hand – over their power to social workers and other state agencies.
5) A society where political correctness rules and acts as a frightening deterrent (just like Napoleon’s dogs in Animal Farm) to free speech. People will become increasingly frightened to criticise any of the left wing groups who make up the Human Rights industry because they will have managed to label such criticism as “hate crime”. Meanwhile criticism of other non – designated victim groups, especially the Catholic Church, will be applauded.
6) A society where, after the father has been given his marching orders, increased hostility to the stay – at – home mother will begin to surface. There will also be a big push for a complete secularisation of education and for the introduction of compulsory sex education from the age of six or seven.
7) A society where children become abandoned to make their own decisions, rather than being given adeqaute and necessary guidance. This will result because parents and teachers will feel increasingly disenfanchised by the Human Rights industry with its children’s “rights” language and they will feel increasingly afraid to discipline children due to fear of being sued.
This Human Rights craic is only the front for a much bigger agenda, which is to radically remake society in accordance with radical left – wing principles. These people use political correctness to silence debate and disguise their radical agenda under a cloak of Human Rights language. And, up until now, Newton Emerson seems to be one of the very few people in this part of the world who has noticed that the Human Rights’ industry’s sums don’t quite add up.
I genuinely think the problem here was more the process than the people involved in it.
The clash between the “civic society reps” and the elected reps, particularly Unionists, was entirely predictable. The task at hand was for the Chair to pursue a path whereby the demands/desires of those “civic society reps” would be turned into something broadly acceptable to elected reps. I have to say that, from the very outset, he refused to do this, failing to tackle even basic issue such as, well, what the Forum was supposed to be doing.
I do not blame civic society reps, as advocates for their sector, for trying to ensure all their demands/desires appear in a Bill of Rights. The problem is, that is not what the Forum was designed to do. It was, in fact, designed to inform the Human Rights Commission which, in turn, is to advise the Secretary of State. No one is due to draft a Bill of Rights!
Furthermore, the debate is not about whether NI gets a Bill of Rights. NI already has a Bill of Rights. The issue is whether it is sufficient. This is a legitimate debate – but again, so intent were people on drafting a Bill in order to get their bits into it, that this debate was forgotten and turned into the usual “evil versus good” that Newton hints at.
My point, really, is that discussion of the outcome has become one of “evil civil society reps” (how dare they try to represent their position?) versus “evil Unionists” (how dare they not love kittens?), but this is unfair all-round. It was the process that was flawed and, by extention, the Chair’s handling of the process early on – if you’ve no foundations, don’t be surprised if the building doesn’t stay up too long.
Instead of confrontation, we should be seeking a public debate about two things on the back of this: first, the actual question posed ten years ago this week – what, if any, are the “particular circumstances of NI” and the “supplemental rights” it requires; second, how are we going to move away from the farcical notion that all our problems are to be solved through legislation and rights (and middle-class consultants’ reports), and instead get people to take responsibility for their own communities, their own fellow citizens, and their own future opportunities?
aquifier
Civil Rights should be be for everyone everywhere, like the national health service.
A well-made and important point.
Civic society reps seem too intent on rights documented in such a way that they would inevitably become enforced by judges rather than by citizens acting responsibly – which in turn would advantage those who are better educated and those who can afford to turn to the courts. Result: exclusion of vulnerable minorities.
Nationalists seem intent on sectarianised rights – accessible only to those prepared to assimilate into one of two pre-defined communities, with the state entitled to label them if they refuse. Result: exclusion of vulnerable minorities.
Would we want a health service accessible only to the well educated and rich? Would we want a health service accessible only to those who agree to label themselves in one of two ways the State determines allowable?
So why do so many make demands that would result in similar for human rights?
[i]They were replaced on Monday by a proposal that: “Every person under the age of 18 years has the right to be treated as a child for the purposes of the administration of criminal justice.”
Posted by Newton Emerson on Apr 04, 2008 @ 02:32 PM
Newton,
The age of criminal responsiblity was not replaced with the words above. The age of criminal responsibilty is clearly stated on page 127, article 7, that it shall be raised in line with international standards.(current international standards are “not less than 12″) In the same provision, it was stated that a child shall be defined as someone under 18, which is the standard. The definition of a child, and the age of criminal responsibility are two different things.
Also, your article mentioned that civic society, outnumbered the political representatives. They did not. 14 each.
Posted by fair play on Apr 04[/i]
I think Newton’s point on the hair-splitting is fair if you read the quote he cited closely. Even though “the definition of a child, and the age of criminal responsibility are two different things” the cited quote doesn’t serve to define a child as someone under 18 as you stated, it is simply a stipulation about how people below that age are to be treated “for the purposes of the administration of criminal justice.”
In the UK, a ‘child’ is anyone under 14 and a a ‘young person’ is anyone between 14 and 18 with both child terms having the same meaning in law. A child below the age of criminal responsibility (under the age of 10) cannot be charged with a criminal offense. This was lowered from 14 in 1998 along with the presumption that children under 14 didn’t know the difference between right and wrong. The age of criminal responsibility is most European countries is between 13 and 16 with the relevant agents UN seeking upward mobility. So it is not surprising that ‘international standards’ for the age of criminal responsibility should be preferred by the ‘liberal left’ over the lower UK age.
The Home Office reported that 3,000 crimes occurred last year by children under the age of criminal responsibility, including the one below whereby a boy of 7 inflicted multiple stab wounds on a Scottish woman.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/6457937.stm
Point of information – although the cost of the BOR Forum was covered by government and therefore the taxpayer, our old friend chuck feeney has paid a waudge o’ money to the HR Consortium – to consult. But because they have not yet used up that money they have another year to do so. Incidentally, the Consortium claims to represent a goodly number of groups but all I know is that two groups to which I belonged have been defunct for over 10 years – trust this is not representative.
IJP’s critique of the process is a good summary. The process, very clearly, was fundamentally flawed. There was no consensus-building in BORF – the levels of support listed in the final report make that self-evident.
The well-rehearsed position of those who desire a so-called ‘maximalist’ bill of rights is indicated in the BORF Report. This – as IJP says – is nothing new. What is much more significant is the demonstration of a complete absence of cross-community support.
This is where I would, respectfully, take issue with Newton’s article which interprets BORF almost entirely in the context of the DUP-SF relationship. BORF was much more interesting than that. Note the places in the Report where Alliance either abstained or voted no. The fact that the position statements of the DUP and UUP were shared/joint statements is also significant.
Nor was BORF a nat/republican v unionist contest. The debates that occurred in BORF were very, very similar to the debates that have happened in other jurisdictions in which those propose an entrenched, justiciable bill of rights come up against those who adhere to the parliamentary system – Canada is the most obvious example.
It is also worth nothing that while the SDLP and Sinn Fein positions were broadly similar, SDLP demonstrated a much greater willingness to engage on the parity of esteem issues mentioned by the Agreement with regards to supplementary rights.
Another thing IJP is entirely correct on – BORF was about informing NIHRC, who then advise the SoS. Well, the BORF report does indeed inform NIHRC – that there is, quite simply, no cross-community support for the sort of bill of rights envisaged in the report. Tuesday’s debate in the Assembly will do likewise.
Newton’s piece is well put. The fundamental concern should be the shift from those in political office making these decisions to those in a court making them. I like many of the members of the high court and fully respect their views but I didn’t vote for them and I won’t get a chance to. The problem with so broadly drafted a bill of rights is that issues that should rightfully be entirely within the remit of those we elect will instead fall to a court. To ask a court to decide the definition of continually improving standard of living is ridiculous. That’s a major political issue, should everyone have it I don’t know but it’s a choice that should properly be made by our elected politicians and what if anything is done to affect the policy choice is similarly up to them. For those slow learners in the human rights industry that is called ‘democracy’ you might care to study it sometime.
We have gone through turmoil to get our own government and to at last have locally directly elected politicians making these choices and now we change that and let unelected and socially elite members of the judiciary do it instead. It’s just ridiculous.
Willowfield was quite right that many of the rights in the document are already contained in the ECHR and courtesy of the Human Rights Act 1998 they are enforceable rights in UK law. This is not about creating basic human rights that has already been done, the UK is not some tin pot dictatorship it has committed itself to many international human rights standards and through the ECHR, which is an amazing act of rights protection in itself, it is committed to a basket of basic human rights that are agreed across a commonality of millions of Europeans. I like kittens and I am fully supportive of the right to life stated in Article 2 or the provisions against torture in Article 3, not sure our DFM can claim that, the basic basket of agreed civic human rights are already protected in UK law. The questions that go beyond these affirmed basic democratic rights are ones for politicians. Just because you call it a right doesn’t make it so. Dressing up your favorite wolf of a political pet policy in the sheep’s clothing of rights is just dishonest and is an attempt to circumvent normal democracy.
One would hope that the NICHR which by law is to offer the secretary of state advice consistent with paragraph 4 of the human rights section of the Belfast Agreement, Section 69(7) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, will take the shearing knife to the suggestions and come up with something sensible but of course it won’t because Monica doesn’t really like democracy either so she will I have no doubt ignore her legal remit and submit this claptrap to the Secretary of State. Really it’s got to the point that the rights industry need a good dose of their own medicine and someone needs to ask the courts to define section 4 of the BFA.
[i] The new Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (see paragraph 5 below) will be invited to consult and to advise on the scope for defining, in Westminster legislation, rights supplementary to those in the European Convention on Human Rights, to reflect the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland, drawing as appropriate on international instruments and experience. These additional rights to reflect the principles of mutual respect for the identity and ethos of both communities and parity of esteem, and – taken together with the ECHR – to constitute a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. Among the issues for consideration by the Commission will be: • the formulation of a general obligation on government and public bodies fully to respect, on the basis of equality of treatment, the identity and ethos of both communities in Northern Ireland; and • a clear formulation of the rights not to be discriminated against and to equality of opportunity in both the public and private sectors [/i]