Tuesday, August 21, 2007

 

Human Rights Act

I'm not jumping on the Sun bandwagon of calling it to be scrapped, but surely there must be a good argument that if you infringe someone else's human rights (by, say, killing them) then you can have your own human rights infringed.

Comments:
Yeah, and thats exactly what happened. He commited the crime, infringed somones right to life, and therefore lost his human right of liberty, being sent to prison. He's close to finishing his minium sentence, when he's done the time in jail, he is entitled to full human rights since he has served his term. Duh.
 
Also, taking the theory to it's extremes, if somone loses their human rights indefinitely after commiting a crime/infringing other peoples rights, it will only be a matter of time before a large group of people who have commited relatively minor crimes or misendeamours will be left without human rights for the rest of their lives, basically creating an extremely vunerable sub-class on who has broken the law in the past and who hasn't.

Mack
 
I definitely agree in most cases that once you've completed your sentence, you have paid the price to society for the crime, and then you should be able to start with a clean slate.

However, where murder is concerned, how is it possible to fully atone for the crime? It's a cliche, but still true, that the murdered person will never have their human rights restored, so why should the murderer?
 
It's not possible to ever "fully atone" for a murder, unless said murderer believes in a deity that has exonerated him etc etc, and the idea of atonement and penance is one derived from personal regret and the willingness to make up for it. The state can't force people to have regrets about their actions.

The murderer should have his/her rights restored because they have completed what has been deemed an appropriate punishment in the eyes of our democratic society. If further depriving them of their rights after doing time seems ok, it leaves them open to all sort of abuses and discrimination while people without criminal records get human rights protection. You follow the idea to it's extreme and say we're going to deprive the murderer of all his rights, fundementally, his right to life. Helloooo death penalty.

At a fundemental level everyone is entitled to human rights. Depriving somone of their rights because of a past action where justice has been served is unjust, as they have already suffered punishment. Condemning them to live without the protection of legistated human rights is what prison is for, not the time that comes after it.
 
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