A bill of rights that belongs to us, John Jackson

John Jackson — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:03:50 +0000

John Jackson (London, Mishcon de Reya): Here in California, eight hours behind British time, I have only just got round to reading Henry Porter’s excellent article in last Sunday’s Observer.

His call for a Bill of Rights with entrenched privacy laws may well be echoed strongly during the important Convention on Modern Liberty to be held next February and, hopefully, echoed with the rider that the protections we already have under the Human Rights Act should not be trimmed away.

What Henry has not touched on is how we get to the content of such a Bill. Conventional theory is that this is a matter for Parliament brought into play by Government and following, perhaps, some form of popular consultation.

That route would, unavoidably, become mired in our discredited party politics and miss the opportunity to catch the swelling tide of public opinion that ‘we’, all of us, should play a more direct and decisive role in determining the fundamental principles which shape the society which is ‘ours’ and which we live in.

There are different, tried and tested, ways of doing this. How the ‘new’ South Africa devised its constitutional settlement, including a statement of rights, is a shining example in which all South Africans take unifying pride.

Thinking along these lines may well be given impetus also by next year’s Convention. If it is. the issue of our need of a written constitution will not be, as Henry Porter puts it, ‘for another time’. It will be for ‘now’.

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A bill of rights that belongs to us, John Jackson