Whatever your views on Jon Venables release and subsequent return to prison there surely can be no disagreement on our right to know what he did to warrant this.
The Injustice Secretary, or whatever Jack Straw is officially called these days, says we don't have a right to know and other Labour politicians have expressed the opinion that the law decides this and that it isn't in the public interest.
Where in law does it say that the public do not have a right to know what crime a criminal has committed? How can the re-imprisonment of a serious offender not be public interest?
In these times when "rights" are scattered around like confetti at a wedding, it is increasingly obvious that certain "rights" of certain people trump those of all others - and it's us, the law abiding majority, whose rights are least respected.
1 comment:
This is a perfect example of the rights of an obnoxious individual taking precedence over the rights of the innocent individual(s). In this case the British public. All human actions have consequences many unintended and this is no more so than in area of human rights. What is intended as a means of protecting individuals against abuse and tyranny has unintentionally allowed nasty individuals to abuse the rights of nice individuals. This has to be redressed by including the following criteria to human rights:
1. Clearly a person is innocent until proven guilty and the slightest doubt of guilt must afford an individual protection under human rights, indisputable evidence of guilt should not.
2. In the event of a conflict of human rights, which can occur frequently then those who have been perceived or known to have acted in a manner that is anti-social or broken the rules of society should lose their human rights precedence, even if it means losing them altogether.
My solution is no less imperfect than the current one. However, it puts human rights where it belongs for victims (and frequently that means the British public as a whole). If you do something that is perceived by society to be wrong then you will know that you will be afforded your human rights, but that those human rights can have limitations. After all the victim us did nothing wrong so why should we penalized by your actions?
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