Human rights and civil liberties
This refers to the column “Constitution’s beautiful words no guarantee of civil liberties” by Rob Wagner. While Rob’s arguments are right in a sense, it is still important to have a sovereign constitution which guarantees all universal values including human and civil rights in 21st century. These are no ordinary laws, and the nation’s whole legal system operates to implement and provide justice based on such important laws. In most countries it is the corrupt, underfunded and understaffed judicial system which is failing the people. Even in the rich countries, the judicial system is not easily accessible to the common man. Near-perfect constitution and the free legislative bodies are the foundations of unity and cohesiveness of the nations.
He is right when he argues that we should not measure the effectiveness of legal system by its conviction rate, especially when the rich or influential can hire or get the best defense legal team and overturn the conviction. But we have to correct these flaws not outright condemn the laws. Most important is to protect the minorities from the tyranny of the majorities or in few cases from the tyranny of those powerful elites in power. Discriminations of all sorts can only be stopped if we have powerful institutions which can provide swift legal remedies.
What we witness in Syria and many other Muslim countries is years’ of bad and tyrannical governance — the legal system subservient to the raw power of the cronies, and these morally corrupt interpret the laws the way governments demand. Pakistan is typical example where elected parliamentary form of government has completely failed the very people who brought these thieves to power. The chances are the same majority of uneducated illiterate will in the next election elect the new thugs to replace the current thieves.
In the current global environment of fights against terrorism, we are witnessing encroachment of individual liberties in the name of national security and safety, and in most cases the racial and ethnic minorities have suffered the most. The UN must improve its oversight of such violations of such rights and must apply one standard when dealing with such behaviors. Too many times the world body is either helpless or very selective in such brazen human rights violations. Meanwhile the governments must spend more of their budgets on protection of citizens’ basic rights at the expense of defense budgets, if only to have more just and peaceful societies, otherwise the Arab Spring will spread to many countries in the world. — Seif A. Somalya, Jeddah
KP fiasco
All Phil Collin fans familiar with the lyrics of his hit number “… How many times I say sorry…!” That is what Kevin Pietersen, MBE, the South African-born 32-year-old England Test player must be asking his captain Andrew Strauss! Kevin is an exciting right-hand batsman and a part-time spin bowler. Controversial “KP” had problem with his old county Hampshire