Ying-Yang of civil liberties

From time to time, the question of whether Australia should adopt a Bill of Rights into its Constitution comes up.

Whenever it does, it raises debate over what constitutes civil liberty.

With rights comes obligations and it seems to me that in codifying an individual’s rights into law, there should be a reciprocal provision for an individual’s obligations to the rest of us.

Not that this does not exist; while many people tend to point to the US model as the way to go, we conveniently and fashionably dismiss the very laws upon which our healthy democracy is based.

The British law of precedent or common law goes back to before the Norman invasion of Britain in 1066.

Since that time successive judgments have helped construct the principles of our present day legal system.

Our common or case law allows a degree of flexibility that a codified law does not.

A Bill of Rights would actually set a limit to the rights implied in common law without imposing any reciprocal obligation on the part of the individual.

The United States model demonstrates a case as to why we shouldn’t incorporate a Bill of Rights into our legal system.

Certainly there is no shortage of evidence to show the difficulties it has caused the US, not to mention the cost of enforcing the law.

Take their much vaunted right to bear arms or their right to free speech: we already have that over here without the need to codify the fact and we have, arguably, fewer problems than the Yanks do.

You have to ask yourself – why?

The trade-off for having the right to bear arms is the honour of having one of the highest homicide rates in the western world, bar South Africa.

It could be argued we have achieved the reverse, in having among the lowest homicide rates in the western world because our rights are tied to our obligations.

Under our laws, there is the ingrained and complimentary concept of duty of care, which underpins all our legislation.

It is an implied obligation that says if you won’t act responsibly, you can’t have it.

I’m not convinced that the American model imposes the same constraints.

And it is in this context that the pursuit of civil liberties may come at the expense of any obligation to the community we share.

It was Jiminy Cricket in Walt Disney’s Pinocchio who sang the delusional “the world owes me a livin’.”

If we are to go down the path of a Bill of Rights, surely it should be accompanied by a Bill of Obligations?

I’m always open to suggestions.

Expanded Justice of the Peace (JP) services are now available at my Nowra office.

A second staff member, Samantha Luxford, has now attained her Justice of the Peace accreditation.

We now have three people in the office who are Justices of the Peace – Sam, Ann Sudmalis and myself.

We do have a lot of people come into the office and require the assistance of a JP and having an extra staff member now qualified to witness documents and so forth is a valuable assistance to the public.

My Nowra office is open from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday.

Jo Gash
Federal Member for Gilmore

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