When my kids were in school, I noticed an interesting phenomenon that went something like this:
Headmaster: No, your kids can't be being bullied. We have a policy against bullying.
I came to call this the "Policy policy": so long as there's a Policy in place for some longstanding problem, action is unnecessary and complainants can be silenced by reference to the Policy.
The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the present government (AKA the Clean Feed Censorship Party) wants to establish a Bill of Rights in Australia to protect citizens against laws that are unconstitutional and against said Bill. I can only see this as misdirection, and a pure instance of the Policy policy. After all, we have seen no infringement of rights in the UK (the most surveilled nation on the planet, death for looking like a terrorist) or the US (Gitmo, extraordinary rendition, police home invasion, Taser deaths...) because they have such Bills.
Look, a Bill of Rights is a nice idea. It may even have some positive effects on legislative excesses, like attempts to restrict marriage to straights (how's that working in the US right now, by the way?). But it won't stop a government like the Clean Feed Censorship Party from being able to circumvent liberties to achieve something For the Children (i.e., for the bureaucrats and their ministers) if they want to do so. The only thing that prevents that is citizen activism, speaking out against these restrictions on freedom.
Hat tip: Sam D at Philosophy Hurts Your Head
- Log in to post comments
It's not often I disagree with you, John, but I do here.
Australia is the only developed Western country without a Bill of Rights; maybe we are the only one in step, but I'd feel much more comfortable if we had a suitable list of basic legal rights, if only as an extra argument to use against the fear-mongering xenophobia we experienced in recent years.
Sure, we need as much citizen activism as possible and let's not put too much trust in noble ideas on paper, but let's also be able to point politicians to basic principles that they are only too happy to overlook.
Viz Richard Ackland in the SMH today, on a possible Bill of Rights here, arguing against the critics of the idea:
"Among the rights most likely to be included would be things such as equality before the law; protection from torture, cruel or degrading treatment; freedom of movement; freedom of expression; privacy; freedom of association and assembly; protection of families and children; and property rights.
These are the traditional smorgasbord of rights. The new battleground is actually about economic rights and rights to things such as education and health, but let's not get ahead ourselves.
There are lite versions already in existence in Australia - in Victoria and the ACT.
Nothing terrible has happened in those places.
(snip)
Yet here we are in Australia, a country where the High Court has said it is perfectly all right to lock up refugees indefinitely without charge, where one side of politics demands mandatory detention for "illegal non-citizens", where people can be wrongly accused of terrorist acts, illegally imprisoned and have their visas cancelled for political purposes, where prisoners can be mistreated and where the security agencies think they are a law unto themselves."
OK, a Bill of Rights is no necessary guarantee, as the sorry examples of Blair's Britain and Bush's USA show, but the more safeguards the better.
My problem is that list our rights on a Bill, and other rights are thereby deprecated, so you better hope that the original Bill is complete and clear. You also better hope that the High Court always has people who interpret law charitably, and not apply Black Letter Interpretations so that if it wasn't included in that Bill in a way that cannot be misread to suit special interests or a government's policy, it will be. You had also better hope that people don't simply think the Policy policy applies, and rest comfortable in the knowledge that our rights are protected by a piece of paper.
Clear and overt rights established by law are only half the story. Without the conventional rights of practice, our law, no matter what it says, can become a prison run by the authorities. Judicial interpretation prevents the executive and legislature (which are unfortunately the same thing in Australia and other Westminster democracies) from running rampant.
Now, if rights were listed as basic in the Constitution, by plebiscite, where the people get to decide individually what they should be, and this is subject to oversight by the representative houses and judicial interpretation, then I'd be much happier. And it still won't undermine the Policy policy point.
Yes, I'd rather have everything properly written - and constitutionally entrenched to the max too. (Not a lawyer, though, so some aspects of the law baffle me, especially the way lawyers can blithely say black is white. Look at the High Court judgment on Freedom of Information, which totally gutted the Act. OK, that reinforces your point about the High Court!)
One problem is that plebiscite votes simply never (or very rarely) get up in Australia - the Opposition can never resist the temptation to embarrass the government by opposing whatever it proposes.
But it may be simply be a question of getting there bit by bit. The Victorian and ACT examples have probably been useful in that regard. If Rudd comes up with a Bill of Rights, I'd expect it to be a step forward, though again I'm not holding my breath. Still, I continue to believe that half a loaf is better than no dinner.
Another slightly bright spot lately was the AFP seeing sense and not imposing a further control order on David Hicks - better than nothing, though the original control order was ridiculous.
I don't much like the idea of rights - especially "inalienable" rights that are 100% contitional (eg: right to liberty, unless you commit a crime). Sends mixed signals, you know?
Rather than express these things as "rights" held by persons, I think they should be phrased as being absolute limits on what governments may do. Same meaning, but different emphasis.