Page 185 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 December 2008
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
many other ways through World War II. So it was timely in 1948 that we had the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
We in the Liberal Party very much affirm the rights that are outlined, and it is worth reflecting on some of those rights. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, free of discrimination based on sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth and other status. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person and are not to be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile, not to be held in slavery or servitude, or subjected to torture, cruel, inhumane treatment or punishment. There is the right to recognition as a person under the law and they are not to be subjected to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor attacks upon their honour and reputation.
There is the right to equal protection under the law, the right to the presumption of innocence and the guarantee of defence, the right to a fair and public hearing by an independent tribunal, the right to the penalties applicable at the time at which the offence was committed, the right to free movement within each state, the right to leave any country and return to their country, the right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution in other countries, the right to a nationality, and not to be arbitrarily deprived of it. There is the right to marry and found a family, with marriage entered into freely and family being the natural and fundamental group unit of society, and there is the entitlement to the protection of society and the state.
There is the right to own property, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to take part in government, the right to equal access to public services. There is the right to rest and leisure, the right to a standard of living adequate for wellbeing of a person and his family. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. There is the right to education. Parents have the right to choose the kind of education for their children. There is the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community. There is the right to social and international order, and the declaration also refers to limitations on the exercise of freedoms in laws designed to secure the rights and freedoms of others.
This is a declaration that, of course, was an aspirational declaration at the time, and we believe still remains an aspirational declaration. We will have debates in this place, we will have debates in parliaments around the country, about the best way of applying this. We will have debates about bills of rights, whether they should be legislated, whether we should have them at all and how extensive they should be, and whether they should be enshrined in the constitution. That will be a national debate that we will have now, and we look forward to being part of that.
But it is worth reflecting also on how far we have fallen short as a globe over the last 60 years in living up to it. We do not have to look very far. We can go back to Rwanda, we can go back to the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, we can go back to Chechnya. We can go to so many other trouble spots in the world, even in the last 10, 15 or 20 years, where we have seen great atrocities, and where we have seen the capacity of human beings, unfortunately at their worst, to do great evil to their fellow human beings.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .