| The basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are considered to be entitled, often held to include the rights to life, liberty, equality, and fair trial, freedom from slavery and torture and freedom of thought and expression. |  |
The history of Human Rights could be argued to go back as far as Cyrus the Great when he freed all the slaves in Persia and declared that people had the right to practice whatever religion they chose. One can track their history and development in documents asserting individual rights such as the Magna Carta, the Petition of Rights, the US Constitution, The French Declaration on the Rights of Man, The US Bill of Rights, the UN Declaration on Human Rights and the European equivalent.
The founding principle of these documents seems to be that humanity has intrinsic value – either due to a religious reason such the existence of a soul or for logical reasons such as the fact that we all have the same DNA and are all members of the species Homo Sapiens.
On Thursday 22nd January, Martin Chamberlain QC came to address our Philosophy Society on the need to continue to have human rights enshrined in law. He first set out the arguments used by those who would remove human rights in the belief that civilised societies automatically protect the rights and liberties of their citizens. This was summed up in the words of Thomas Jefferson: “Our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves”. Mr Chamberlain suggested that although on the surface this sounds honorable in reality this is “tyranny by the majority”.
On Thursday 22nd January, Martin Chamberlain QC came to address our Philosophy Society on the need to continue to have human rights enshrined in law. He first set out the arguments used by those who would remove human rights in the belief that civilised societies automatically protect the rights and liberties of their citizens. This was summed up in the words of Thomas Jefferson: “Our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves”. Mr Chamberlain suggested that although on the surface this sounds honorable in reality this is “tyranny by the majority”.
Mr Chamberlain then went on to outline why this was the case based on the thinking of scholars such as John Adams, Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill; that in a democracy, if an individual is wronged, who can he appeal to other than the majority? If the individual is not supported by the majority they risk being victimized or subjected to violations of their rights. This is why there must be an independent judiciary and intrinsic human rights to protect citizens.
Now the discussion moved onto a number of cases where there has been an appeal to the Convention on Human Rights to ensure that justice is done – some of these were cases where Mr Chamberlain was the acting barrister. These included prisoners arguing for the vote, the death of Baha Mousa, the deportation Abu Quatda and the issue of Free Speech. The talk concluded with a discussion of the Charlie Hebdo case and how selective governments can be about the right to free-speech – the Human Rights Convention is needed to ensure that justice remains blind and that all are treated with equality and impartiality.
The talk was extremely well received by our pupils and this was demonstrated in high quality of questions that they asked in response. These included whether there are any situations when human rights can be legitimately be ignored, if the British government should develop an independent Bill of Rights and Responsibilities and whether verbal abuse should be treated in the same way by the Law as physical abuse.
For Berkhamsted students, a video of the talk will be available on the learning platform.
Do you think we don't need to have a Convention on Human Rights? Or are they essential for justice to be done?
The talk was extremely well received by our pupils and this was demonstrated in high quality of questions that they asked in response. These included whether there are any situations when human rights can be legitimately be ignored, if the British government should develop an independent Bill of Rights and Responsibilities and whether verbal abuse should be treated in the same way by the Law as physical abuse.
For Berkhamsted students, a video of the talk will be available on the learning platform.
Do you think we don't need to have a Convention on Human Rights? Or are they essential for justice to be done?
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