Bill of Rights encoded for all time V human rights protected by Parliament?

Discussion in 'Civil Liberties' started by Eclipse, Jul 23, 2011.

  1. Eclipse

    Eclipse New Member

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    Hi all,
    this is a piece I’ve been working on. Enjoy.

    ****

    I’m all for human rights, who isn’t? But what is the best mechanism to protect human rights in a country? Is it a Bill of Rights, or some other mechanism?

    1. A Bill of Rights is stuck in an ivory tower and is not specific or real!

    We are all for right to privacy, agreed? As long as we stay in the abstract like this we are happy. I want my privacy, you want yours — if that’s all we had to say about it we can all agree. Let’s just sign the Bill and be done with it. Pass the champagne.

    Not so fast. Let’s get specific here. I can easily imagine situations where I gladly give up my right to privacy, and would ask others to do the same!

    Some time ago I described the Australian Police practice of RBT (Random Breath Testing) to an American friend, and he gasped in horror! “What about your right to privacy?” he protested, as if I had said something unthinkable. This was some time ago. I could not think. I wish I had answered, “But what about my right to life, to not being killed by a drunk driver, to living in a society that has statistically less drink driving because they know they are pulled over at any moment and tested at any moment?”

    Once we get specific the battle lines are drawn up. That’s when people disagree. And when people disagree, decisions must be made. How are we going to do that? As ‘Big Ideas’ said:



    2. A Bill of rights will make unelected Judges the interpreters of our rights, not our elected Politicians who are often trained in the statistics of social policy and public mood.

    Does RBT infringe on my right to privacy or help protect my right to life? Will society judge that my right to privacy is violated if a cop pulls me over and asks me to blow into a tube, or will society decide my right to protection from drunken idiots wielding a ton of steel at a hundred kilometers an hour is more important?

    When we break down notions of human rights into specific questions we can see that they become divisive. It’s just like watching the ABC’s Q&A, you can see the audience drawing up their battle lines and feel the tension in the air. Educated, nice people will just disagree because of their own life experiences and baggage. For instance, if I have had a ban run in with the authorities as a youth, and naturally feel suspicious about giving the police extra powers, I would no doubt want to ban RBT. It’s just too open to abuse! But if — on the other hand — I had watched my dear father die in the twisted metal of a car wreck, then I might be more likely to want strong action against drink drivers.

    Lawyers and judges have had training to interpret the law, not decide social issues for us. Who are lawyers to interpret multi-disciplinary issues that might involve Australian society, culture, psychology, architecture and infrastructure? Human rights can affect everything, from how we design a train station with access for the disabled to how we run the public transport system as a whole. Rights questions are asked of employment programs and military training, running a school and how you walk to school. Are a bunch of wealthy lawyers going to make better decisions than engineers and teachers and bus drivers on these matters? Are they somehow more qualified to debate the issues and rights and wrongs of the best ways to protect Australian citizens living in the real world with real problems?

    I say no. I say — as imperfect as it is — that we keep our human rights where they are. We keep them under Parliamentary Law. For our Parliaments, whether Federal or State, are subject to the ebb and flow of contemporary wisdom and common sense. Politicians should adapt the laws to the concerns of the day. Every year brings new social problems, scientific concerns, technological innovations, infrastructure concerns and public health crisis. Laws travel in one direction for a while and society learns from experience. Then — when the situation changes and public pressure builds — laws can move back again. That is a good thing!

    Social policies should be decided by science and statistics and sociology and psychology and, if all else fails, elections! Surely, in a specific question like the RBT laws, we want the public to decide. Surely we want controversial policies like banning the Burqa or pub curfews or teenage driving laws decided by statistics and social sciences and public opinion, not dusty old texts written by our grandfathers. For make no mistake — a Bill of Rights will age. Even more so in this era of technological acceleration.

    3. A Bill of Rights will politicize the judiciary

    Lawyers and judges are unelected, unaccountable, and unsuited to interpret a bill of rights in the thousands of very real, very practical questions that could be put to them. A bill of rights turns judges into high priests of social policy. This politicizes the judiciary. Just watch American politics the next time a new judge is appointed to the Supreme Court.

    4. A Bill of Rights will encode the silly prejudices and blind spots of our generation forever!

    Policies can be right for one generation and wrong for another. RBT might be necessary in this generation of drinking and driving. But if robot cars arrive over the next ten years, driving may become a thing of the past — let alone drink driving. So if RBT’s become irrelevant, the laws and policies can easily be changed. They are not enshrined in some interpretation of the Bill of rights — a hallowed parchment up there with our Constitution!

    The problem with these Bills is they cannot predict the thousands of new social policies we will need for each situation. The ivory tower doesn’t always understand life on the street. A bill of rights attempts to condense weighty and complex issues into trite summaries. Do we really want these things encoded for all time?

    Bills of rights promote an absolute formula of ‘rights’ as interpreted by our generation, and make them absolute for all time. However they should more accurately be described as social policies and Parliamentary laws held to account by the political process and democratic discussion of the day. Instead of ensuring our rights through some abstract, ivory tower parchment codified for all time, we should protect them through a strong democratic process. Otherwise the bill will reflect the silly prejudices and blind spots of our day.

    Instead let’s protect our human rights by protecting the free press and good government and integrity of our elections and all the other foundations of a good democracy. Let’s stay vigilant in protecting the processes of effective democracy, for this best protects the integrity of the conversation of the day. Not some piece of paper stuck behind glass in a museum.

    5. A Bill of Rights will enshrine selfishness over the good of the community

    I would have sworn the Australian Christian Lobby would have been for a bill of human rights. Of course they are for human rights, but surprisingly they are against a bill of rights! Instead, Brigadier Jim Wallace, AM, (Ret’d) Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby said something to the effect that “Bills of rights enshrine selfishness over the rights of the community”, which helped me remember my conversation with my American friend about RBT. For is it really that big a deal to pull over and blow through a little tube once a year, if that? Is it really affecting my privacy that much, especially if I am a law abiding citizen and have nothing to fear? In other words, YES, I support RBT! I think it is a valuable tool for getting the idiots off the road. Drink driving is death on wheels. I have trouble imagining a society that would refuse this powerful tool for curbing a very real problem. But my American friend gasped in revulsion at the concept. He saw view it as an attack on his freedom because he was taught about his ‘right to privacy’ from a very young age. But that’s not really the lesson Americans seem to learn. Instead, in this and so many other areas, they learn that the individual matters more than the community, that selfishness is good. I find that appalling.

    Please, “Don’t leave us with the bill!” Download the podcast here.
    http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigideas/stories/2009/2596855.htm
     
  2. botenth

    botenth Banned

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    That's what Common Law is all about, but lawyers and judges have made you think that the law is their ticket to do whatever they want whenever they want to do it.

    If people wake up, corrupt lawyers and corrupt judges will be in jail, where they belong.
     
  3. Jack Ridley

    Jack Ridley New Member

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    In my dreams.
     
  4. PatrickT

    PatrickT Well-Known Member

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    Encoded for all time? Really? Who has a Bill of Rights that isn't subject to amendment?
     
  5. tomteapack

    tomteapack New Member Past Donor

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    I have no idea what this overly wordy nonsense means. Is there a readers digest condensed version?
     
  6. Eclipse

    Eclipse New Member

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    It means that I think Parliamentary Law protects human rights better than some Bill of Human Rights.

    It means I like voting on how we're going to live, rather than having a few unelected judges decide how I'm going to live.

    It means I actually think BILLS of Human Rights are less democratic because they give certain political decisions to unelected judges. I think society should have the right to vote on these matters.

    It's about how we decide what is best for us and our community. Do you want cops to be able to pull you over a few times a year and breath test you for drunk driving? I do. I'd vote for that if it was put to the vote. But some wealthy judges that attend a few too many wealthy dinner parties with our best Australian wines might object to cops pulling them over. So they might together decide that Random Breath Testing was 'bad', that it was against 'our' Right to Privacy. I say that RBT is good, that it actually helps protect my 'right to life'. Who said they get to choose something so important? Why don't I get to vote on it!? Oh yeah, that's right, because the decision making process for that kind of law is suddenly in the hands of unelected judges instead of the electorate.
     

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