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Manipulation of "Rights" Lets Criminals Off The Hook
by beano 
on 28 Feb 2008 at 14:43. Categories: Local Wackos, Law & Order, Politics, Devolved Government It really is time to put a stop to the nonsense going on at the Bill of Rights Forum. This bunch of professional do-gooders, whose job seems to be to advise those who will advise the government on a Bill of Rights, seem to want to allow anyone under the age of 18 to escape prosecution when they commit a crime.
I'm sure you're all familiar with stories about violent and disruptive youngsters who proudly proclaim "I know my rights" when teachers attempt to discipline them. They must be having a good laugh at this. This is not what a Bill of Rights is supposed to be about!
There is an age under which children aren't held criminally responsible for their actions because they aren't mature enough to understand right and wrong. At the moment, that age is set as 10. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child don't like it being that low (the BORF seem happy enough to let us all know that bit) saying anything below 12 is not acceptable. What the BORF aren't so quick to talk about is The BORF do admit that they (the UN) view ages between 14-16 as "high" (though they deem this commendable), and yet they want the age raised to 18. So the offender, in the worst cases possibly a 17 year old who has abused a child or raped a woman, will be treated with kid-gloves and emerge with no criminal record.
Follow up:
This is just an example of the lunacy surrounding the process of advising on a Bill of Rights. There seems to be more than a little ego involved in the Bill of Rights Forum with participants wanting to set Northern Ireland up as some kind of leading light for others to emulate.
The simple fact is there is a reasonably good Bill of Rights that could be emulated if it was felt necessary. It's short and to the point and it guarantees the citizen important freedom from the state in key areas. The local shower, on the other hand, are intent on using the Northern Ireland Bill of Rights as an opportunity to impose their own political objectives on an unwitting populace by dressing them up as 'rights' and manipulating the people of Northern Ireland. It's a flagrant abuse and needs to be stopped.
(Sorry for this being a day late, I was away from my PC all day yesterday. What a depressing story to come back to!)
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4 comments
Did you get bored reading the document Beano?! They mention this fact on page 34 of the report. Moreover, they don't propose an end to incarceration of children, and nor do they propose an end to punishment. Rather, they argue that holding children responsible ought to be done in a manner that is sensitive to their youth. What's the matter with that? Do you really believe that there's a social benefit to locking 16 year olds up as criminals with adults, never mind 11 year olds? They'll come out as reformed characters will they?
What the forum is proposing is a regime similar to that in - shock horror - Scotland. So we're not looking at some sort of radical 'do-gooder' manifesto here.
I more or less agree that a brief bill of rights is better than a long one, but I think your mistaken in thinking that there's inherently political consequences and motives involved in naming specific rights and none with the short bills. First, vague laws probably lead to more political entrepreneur behavior, not less (as the American rights culture proves). Second, there are many many many bills of rights around the world and America's is the shortest. AFAIK South Africa's mammoth effort is the longest (and strangely, the US, not SA, is the place you think of when you think of it's-my-right-ery). It's likely that NI will end up somewhere in between.
I wouldn't advocate too vague a statement of rights because you're right, that does leave things much too open to interpretation. Sadly "a manner that is sensitive to their youth" is exactly the sort of statement that could lead to a lot of problems on that front.
I accept that there's an argument that 10 is too young, but I can't see any argument for raising the age above 14. A toddler often knows when he's doing something 'wrong', even if he doesn't understand why it's wrong (i.e. that the reason he gets smacked for putting his fingers near the plug sockets is because he'll get electrocuted). Likewise a teenager may not fully comprehend why sectarian abuse or violence is so poisonous to society, but he still knows that what he's doing is wrong. The answer may be more 'citizenship' type education or something else, but making excuses isn't it.
Drug dealers sometimes use children to sell their products for this very same reason.
What is needed is to make parents of all kids 0-18 jointly responsible (In both civil AND criminal law) for the actions of their feral spawn. With Judges could decide in each case what percentage of responsibity atached to the parents v's the child with the general principle that as the child gets older more of the responsibility falls on him/her.
If such a law was introduced one just might find parents starting to take an interest in where their little brats are at night
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