Some of the work carried out by the Commonwealth Secretariat which addresses challenged to the rule of law, including election observation, was outlined by Betty Mould-Iddrisu, Director of Legal and Constitutional Affairs.
Lawyers Association remains vigilant of challenges to rule of law
27 October 2008
Promoting the administration of justice and protecting human rights were addressed at conference held in Jamaica
Promoting the administration of justice and protecting human rights in accordance with the Commonwealth Latimer House Principles were discussed at the recent Commonwealth Lawyers Association’s (CLA) conference which took place in Jamaica.
Ron Heinrich, President of the CLA, spoke about the recent challenges to human rights and the rule of law in such countries as Pakistan, Fiji Islands and Zimbabwe. However, he stressed that challenges to the rule of law were not confined to developing countries.
Commonwealth Latimer House Principles
The Latimer House Principles are guidelines that spell out the roles, and relationship between the three arms of government – executive, parliament, and the judiciary.
They were developed in June 1998 by a group of parliamentarians, judges, lawyers and legal academics to provide an operational manual of good practice in relation to the Commonwealth’s fundamental values of promoting democracy and good governance, human rights and the rule of law.
Mr Heinrich referred to Guantanamo Bay and the role played by the CLA in presenting arguments in the UK’s House of Lords on the inadmissibility of evidence obtained by torture.
“The CLA had to remain vigilant of such challenges to the rule of law and intervene where necessary,” he said.
More than 450 delegates attended the CLA’s conference, which was held in Montego Bay from 16 to 19 October 2008.
In his keynote address to the 25th Anniversary Conference, senior British judge Lord Leonard Hoffmann said: “There are undoubtedly some rights you cannot conceive a decent democratic society being conducted without.” However, in implementing such rights, “one has to have regard to the history and conditions of one’s country.”
The Universality of Human Rights, addressed by Lord Hoffmann in his speech, was one of the main themes of the conference.
Bruce Golding, Prime Minister of Jamaica, who opened the conference, noted that the debate on human rights had become polarised between those who insist on the inviolability of such rights on the one hand, and those who proffer the inescapability of certain security measures on the other. Mr Golding asked the conference to consider: “How movable is the sacred threshold of human rights?”
The Conference Chair, Dr Lloyd Barnett, held that the delineation of certain rights as ‘human rights’ was not a dogmatic, engineering line, but a conceptual, architectural line. This line could vary, he argued, when there were compelling reasons to do so and could also change over time.
delicious
digg
reddit
facebook
stumbleupon