Human rights laid bare

Human Rights

Human rights are those rights that every individual on the planet is entitled to. Human rights are entitled to every individual regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, whether the individual is a criminal or not, working class or social status. Human rights are automatically assigned to an individual the moment they are born, these rights cannot be infringed upon by anyone whether in the family or a position of authority. These human rights are there to ensure that an individual can have the basic rights and needs to live a happy life. The following is a list of some of the areas that human rights covers:

Areas of human rights

• Individuals have the right to the freedom of expression
• Individuals have the right to life
• Individuals have the right to marry and start a family
• Individuals have the right to liberty
• Individuals have the right to fair trial should they be convicted of a crime
• Individuals have the right to respect for private and family life
• Individuals have the right to an education
• Individuals have the right not to be discriminated against
• Individuals have the right to be free from torture, degrading treatment, slavery and forced labour
• Individuals have the right for freedom of thought, conscience and religion

There are other areas of human rights but I feel the aforementioned list shows the most important areas that commonly arise within disputes of human rights infringements.

Human rights law

The main piece of legislation that regulates human rights is the human rights act 1998. This act is at the centre of any disputes regarding human right infringements. Certain areas of human rights can be quite contentious, this refers to such disputes that arise out of issues regarding the right to respect for private and family life. It is important for the government to respect this right but at the same time ensure that this doesn’t result in crimes going unnoticed. There have been cases in the past where individuals experiencing domestic abuse felt helpless because it was in their home seen as the private realm, which the government cannot enter. Similar to this there have been difficulties over freedom of expression, this relates to defamation law. A level needs to be set where individuals can have this freedom of speech but what they are saying is not allowed to be defamatory of a another person. Disputes can arise over situations where human right laws seem to conflict with more contemporary laws.

Human rights and employment

The area of employment is one that can be found to frequently infringe an individual’s human rights. When working in the public sector an employer cannot ask their employees to do anything which may violate their human rights, similarly they cannot act in any way which may infringe upon the employees human rights, this refers to any discriminatory or degrading actions as a result of sexual orientation, disability, religious beliefs and any other reason relating to the individuals human rights,.

If any breach of an individual’s human rights occurs during their personal life, at work or with involvement of any governmental authority, an individual is well within their rights to begin proceedings against that party using the Human Rights Act 1998 as the legislation in place to refer too.