scholarly journals When Human Rights are not Enough

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 236
Author(s):  
Joeni Kurniawan

Juridically, there have been quite a lot of legal instruments existing in Indonesia to protect human rights. These legal instruments include the Indonesian Constitution, which has special articles regulating about human rights, the Human Rights Act (the Law Number 39 of 1999), the National Commission for Human Rights, etc. Thus, normatively, all those legal instruments should be adequate to protect human rights in Indonesia, including the protection of the minority groups. However, the facts don’t seem in line with such expectation. There have been a lot of cases happened in Indonesia that bring this country into a serious question in its ability to protect the minority groups. The persecutions over the Ahmadiyah and Shia sects, the rejections against non-Muslim worship place establishments, and as the most recent one, the case of Jakarta’s governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, are some of the long sad stories showing how Indonesia is really poor in its performance to protect the minority groups. Identity politics and even a sentiment of racism are re-escalating in Indonesia today, which seems affirming the research findings got by the Wahid Foundation showing that 59.9% of 1520 of respondents from 34 provinces in Indonesia said that they have hatred towards some groups of their fellow citizen, such as those who are non-Muslims, Chinese-descents, communists, etc (Hakim 2016). Among this 59,9% respondents, 92,2% of them said that they highly oppose a person coming from those groups to become a governmental leader, and 82,4% of this people even said that they don’t want to have a neighbor coming from those groups (Hakim 2016). Such re-emergence of identity politics and sentiment of racism, as well as a frightening fact of hatred among people, really give a serious question about why all the human rights instruments which already exist in Indonesia seem to fail in preventing all those things to happen. In this article, I will show my hypothesis that all that sad news that happened in Indonesia in regard to the minority group protection are due to the failure of multiculturalism approach implemented in Indonesia so far. Thus, I will also propose the interculturalism approach to be implemented in Indonesia as the critique and refinement of multiculturalism approach in dealing with the multicultural society, including in regard to the minority groups protection.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nicholas Ruane

<p>This thesis examines lobbying from the disabled people’s organisation Disabled Persons Assembly (DPA) NZ from 1989 until 1993. It explores how the organisation conducted lobbying activities with respect to two pieces of New Zealand legislation with constitutional significance: The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the Human Rights Act 1993.  This thesis places the plight of minority groups within the political process squarely under the research microscope and asks: what factors explain the different outcomes to the DPA’s lobbying efforts to the Bill of Rights in 1990 and the Human Rights Act in 1993?  More specifically it examines the DPA’s decision to collaborate with the New Zealand Aids Foundation (AF) during the 1993 Human Rights Act campaign. Collaboration with the AF was a controversial decision that resulted in heated discussions within DPA. Some members were concerned about the political risks of aligning with the AF. DPA leadership however saw a possibility for broad human rights legislation, and took the decision to collaborate. They were convinced that collaboration would bring benefits in the form of greater resources, access to Parliament and better relationships with the media which would all lead to an enhanced capacity to make the case to the public.  The thesis argues that by working with the AF, DPA was able to change its lobbying narrative from one solely focussed upon disability rights to one that broadened out to broader human rights protections. DPA was not positioning itself as a minority group arguing for narrow exceptions to existing legislation, a tactic it had pursued in previous campaigns. The campaign proved successful, gaining support from MP’s, as the Human Rights Act was perceived to have public support.  The thesis also shows that to understand DPA’s successful strategy it needs to be seen in the context of a failed effort from a previous campaign. DPA’s campaign to lobby for the 1993 Human Rights Act began from the point of an unsuccessful fight to have disability rights included in the 1990 Bill of Rights. DPA was, in effect, ‘locked in’ to fighting the 1993 campaign from that point.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nicholas Ruane

<p>This thesis examines lobbying from the disabled people’s organisation Disabled Persons Assembly (DPA) NZ from 1989 until 1993. It explores how the organisation conducted lobbying activities with respect to two pieces of New Zealand legislation with constitutional significance: The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the Human Rights Act 1993.  This thesis places the plight of minority groups within the political process squarely under the research microscope and asks: what factors explain the different outcomes to the DPA’s lobbying efforts to the Bill of Rights in 1990 and the Human Rights Act in 1993?  More specifically it examines the DPA’s decision to collaborate with the New Zealand Aids Foundation (AF) during the 1993 Human Rights Act campaign. Collaboration with the AF was a controversial decision that resulted in heated discussions within DPA. Some members were concerned about the political risks of aligning with the AF. DPA leadership however saw a possibility for broad human rights legislation, and took the decision to collaborate. They were convinced that collaboration would bring benefits in the form of greater resources, access to Parliament and better relationships with the media which would all lead to an enhanced capacity to make the case to the public.  The thesis argues that by working with the AF, DPA was able to change its lobbying narrative from one solely focussed upon disability rights to one that broadened out to broader human rights protections. DPA was not positioning itself as a minority group arguing for narrow exceptions to existing legislation, a tactic it had pursued in previous campaigns. The campaign proved successful, gaining support from MP’s, as the Human Rights Act was perceived to have public support.  The thesis also shows that to understand DPA’s successful strategy it needs to be seen in the context of a failed effort from a previous campaign. DPA’s campaign to lobby for the 1993 Human Rights Act began from the point of an unsuccessful fight to have disability rights included in the 1990 Bill of Rights. DPA was, in effect, ‘locked in’ to fighting the 1993 campaign from that point.</p>


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Andrew L-T Choo

Chapter 1 examines a number of basic concepts and distinctions in the law of evidence. It covers facts in issue and collateral facts; relevance, admissibility, and weight; direct evidence and circumstantial evidence; testimonial evidence and real evidence; the allocation of responsibility; exclusionary rules and exclusionary discretions; free(r) proof; issues in criminal evidence; civil evidence and criminal evidence; the implications of trial by jury; summary trials; law reform; and the implications of the Human Rights Act 1998. This chapter also presents an overview of the subsequent chapters.


Author(s):  
Ruth Costigan ◽  
Richard Stone

Course-focused and comprehensive, the Textbook on series provide an accessible overview of the key areas on the law curriculum. This chapter examines the issues arising from more extended detention, generally at a police station. It focuses on the grounds for such extended detention prior to charge, and the procedures which must be adopted in relation to it. It considers the rights of a citizen who is a ‘suspect’ but against whom the police do not have sufficient evidence to charge with an offence. Relevant provisions under the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 are discussed.


2019 ◽  
pp. 10-36
Author(s):  
Maureen Spencer ◽  
John Spencer

This chapter focuses on the burden of proof and presumption of innocence in criminal and civil cases under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It considers the influence of the UK’s Human Rights Act 1998 on the allocation of the burden of proof and compares legal/persuasive burden of proof with the evidential burden. It contains a detailed examination of the case law under this Act and the criteria developed to assess where reverse burdens should apply. It draws on academic commentary in making this analysis. It also looks at situations where the legal and the evidential burden may be split. It concludes with an overview of the law on presumptions.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Maureen Spencer ◽  
John Spencer

This chapter introduces the principles and key concepts underlying the law of evidence, with an emphasis on criminal evidence. It reviews Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), now part of English law as a result of the Human Rights Act 1998. It concludes by highlighting the importance of analysis of the relevance of the facts in a trial.


Tort Law ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 446-481
Author(s):  
Kirsty Horsey ◽  
Erika Rackley

This chapter examines the nascent ‘tort’ of invasion of privacy. It first considers why no free-standing tort of invasion of privacy exists, before looking at breach of confidence—a legal concept straddling tort and equity and concerned with ‘secrets’ and judicially adapted to protect privacy by developing the new tort of misuse of private information. The chapter then asks whether developments in the law protecting privacy—particularly in the wake of the Human Rights Act 1998—threaten freedom of expression and therefore the general public’s ‘right’ to information, particularly about celebrities, including royalty and politicians.


Evidence ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew L-T Choo

Chapter 1 examines a number of basic concepts and distinctions in the law of evidence. It covers facts in issue and collateral facts; relevance, admissibility, and weight; direct evidence and circumstantial evidence; testimonial evidence and real evidence; the allocation of responsibility; exclusionary rules and exclusionary discretions; free(r) proof; issues in criminal evidence; civil evidence and criminal evidence; the implications of trial by jury; summary trials; law reform; and the implications of the Human Rights Act 1998. This chapter also presents an overview of the subsequent chapters.


2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Tamir

The phenomenon of social exclusion in Israel is a vivid demonstration of the Basic Laws' failure to fulfil their integrative role. Despite the ‘constitutional revolution’ and the Supreme Court's ongoing endeavour over the last two decades to instil a bill of rights through its jurisprudence, Israeli society has failed to fully internalise values of equality. In terms of legal jargon, individuals continue to claim and exercise ‘sole and despotic dominion’ over their private property in order to avoid contact with individuals belonging to certain minority groups. In many cases, such behaviour in the private sphere results in exclusion from the public sphere.This phenomenon is especially astonishing considering the fact that many laws in Israel apply the right of equality to the private sphere. Furthermore, the Israeli Supreme Court has developed comprehensive human rights jurisprudence applicable to the private sphere. The gap between the law in the books and the law in action illustrates that effective implementation of human rights in the private sphere cannot be achieved solely by specific legislation or by jurisprudence that is sensitive to human rights. This argument is backed by several recent bills which preserve and enforce the exclusion of minorities, particularly of Arabs, from the public sphere. These bills illustrate that exclusion is indeed a growing phenomenon in Israeli society that cannot be overlooked. Moreover, they underscore the urgent need to entrench a direct obligation to apply human rights to the private sphere at the constitutional level. This will be achieved only when Israel adopts a full constitution.


Author(s):  
Judith-Anne MacKenzie

Course-focused and comprehensive, the Textbook on series provide an accessible overview of the key areas on the law curriculum. This chapter explains some provisions of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms and the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA 1998), both of which are relevant to the study of land law. The significance of the HRA 1998 in land law cases is also discussed.


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