Human rights and all that nonsense.........

“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble,… “the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.”

 

We hear a great deal of loose talk about ‘human rights’, but just what are they?

 

The principles were set out some years ago by LCJ Lord Bingham. They are:

 

The right to life;

Protection from torture;

Protection from slavery and forced labour;

The right to liberty and security;

The right to a fair trial;

Protection from punishment without law;

The right of respect for private and family life;

Freedom of thought, conscience and religion;

Freedom of expression;

Freedom of  assembly and association;

The right to marry;

Freedom from discrimination;

Protection of property;

The right to education.

 

It is difficult to argue with that list.

 

And yet many of these rights are breeched on almost a daily basis by our governors. Freedom of thought and expression is set at nought by the plethora of laws that criminalise much of what might formerly have been expressed without any concern. Most of the ‘hate crimes’ stuff comes into this category.  People are constantly being prosecuted or disciplined for expressing their wholly personal opinions on Facebook and Twitter or simply down the pub.

 

 

We currently have two rather stupid football managers being disciplined for the vulgar views that they exchanged on social media. The Blair/Brown regime created whole body of law that limited freedom of thought and expression to a degree that would have seemed totalitarian to earlier generations.

 

Freedom of assembly is constantly breached when the police use force to break up peaceful demonstrations, the most outrageous being the beating of middle-aged middle class farmers’ wives for protesting against the hunting ban (the police did not show the same amount of diligence in  tackling the hunt saboteurs).

 

The right to marry cannot include same-sex marriage because no such thing exists, no matter what the law says, for the simple reason that it is not within the power of Parliament to change the English language by statute. Language is the method of communication agreed by the community, not something that is susceptible to arbitrary political change. ‘The legal union of a man and woman in order to live together’. This is Alice in Wonderland. `Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on. `I do,' Alice hastily replied; `at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the same thing, you know.' `Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter. `You might just as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!'

 

Protection from punishment without trial? Try telling that to the old men whose reputations have been ruined by Operation Yewtree with police releasing the names to the media of people who were never even arrested, never mind charged. And Cliff Richard will not think much for the human right to protect his property when his can be invaded by both the police and a BBC helicopter and sundry hacks in his absence and without his knowledge.

 

The problem is that the entire concept has been brought into disrepute by complainants, lawyers, and judges who try – and too often succeed – in stretching the interpretations to the point of absurdity. The ECHR is particularly adept at this. Owning a cat does not create a ‘family’. The right to family should offer no protection to a deportee for the simple reason that he can take his family with him.

 

Human rights per se do not derive from law. They derive from the values of a Western Christian civilisation. They were fought for over the centuries before Lord Bingham codified them.

 

But we have ceded the rule of law to the rule of lawyers.