Latest update February 16th, 2025 7:49 PM
Aug 17, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
Kaieteur News – Man is a social being. He does not live or exists alone; he co-exists with others in society.
There is cost to man’s social being. He agrees as part of the social contract to subrogate his rights for the overall benefit of society.
If you live in a house with others you cannot walk in and out of that house as you please. There will be rules and more importantly there will be obligations. Similarly every person as a member of society has obligations, the foremost of which is to avoid doing anything which would harm other members of society.
These obligations are collective rights and it is these collective rights which are the basis of the social contract which in turn is the pedestal on which social order is constructed. Without collective rights every man would be a law onto himself and without any obligation to show regard for others
Individuals’ rights are considered inalienable – that is they cannot be taken away; they are inherent by virtue of the nature of human person. However, these individual rights are conditioned, modified and restricted by collective rights and are subordinate to collective rights even though the latter is socially constructed.
Individual rights assume such subordination. The right to free expression assumes that there is collective which someone needs to communicate with or listen to. The right to self-defence assumes that man lives in a society and has a right to protect himself from the harmful actions of others. The right to conscience assumes also that there are divergent religious, cultural and other beliefs and in a society, but that each has a right to his own beliefs but only in so far as these do not impinge on the rights of each other.
All of the fundamental human rights have exceptions, and these exceptions are aimed at protecting the good of society – the collective good. They have limitations.
There is a right to life. But a person can be deprived of his right to life by the use of justifiable force in effecting a lawful arrest, prevent escape lawful detention or to prevent the commission of an offence.
A person is born free. This accords him the natural right of liberty. However, as a member of society if he violates the law, the courts can restrict this liberty and imprison him.
The law can also provide for you to be detained if you pose a threat to the health of society. During the early days of the pandemic, the APNU+AFC had issued an Order which allowed for persons testing positive to be mandatorily confined to an institution for recovery and treatment.
The Constitution also provides that a person’s liberty may be limited by law in order to prevent the spread of an infectious disease. The Constitution also allows for the passage of laws which would allow for persons’ liberties to be curtailed if they are deemed to require treatment or for the protection of society by virtue of them being of unsound mind addicted to drugs or alcohol, or a vagrant.
The Constitution therefore permits laws which limit individual rights, including if such restrictions are necessary to prevent the spread of infectious or contagious disease or to protect the community otherwise. However, a person’s freedom cannot be restricted other than by law. The government can also pass laws which compel you to do national service. That too has to be authorised by law and by law alone.
Citizens have a right to property. But that property can be taken from you by order of the court in settlement of unpaid taxes or by virtue of foreclosures. If the property is derelict and poses a threat to the safety of others, the law may authorise the relevant authorities to condemn the property and pull it down.
Every citizen has a right to freedom of expression. But you do not have the right to assassinate the character of others or to use free speech to incite hatred and racism.
A right exists for freedom of assembly. But the government is authorised to take action by law to protect public order, public health and public safety.
All of the fundamental human rights are therefore limited by the need to protect the collective. And given the wide latitude of the exceptions and limitations, it can be concluded that individual human rights are subordinate to collective rights.
The superiority of collective rights over individual rights is enforced by laws. You have a right to freedom of movement but you cannot go through a red light at a traffic junction. The law provides that if you do so you are threatening the rights of other road users and therefore you can be charged.
Everyone has a right to a healthy environment. This is a collective right and the reason why persons are not allowed to smoke in public places, by law.
In the case of the vaccines, the government can make it mandatory. But the Government of Guyana has chosen not to do so. However, in the interest of protecting the collective from an infectious or contagious, the government is taking measures to protect others from the unvaccinated. How can this measure which is aimed at public safety be seen as a violation of a human right when it is protecting a collective right to public health?
How different is this from an employer telling a worker that he or she has a right to employment but if that person comes to work late every day then the employer has a right to terminate that person’s services?
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
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