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There is a very important conception for human rights -
it is law-based government. In countries that evolved after USSR had collapsed
and in other countries there are problems with understanding of definition
"law-based government". The simplest definition (and I know
about 70 definitions): law-based government is such a government where
an individual can foresee how his government will respond to his actions.
That is, when I do something, the government's response will be exactly
this, and not that. There is no such problem, that when I do something
only God knows what an official will do to me in response. If I do A then
an official will do B, but not C or D. This is a law-based government.
I often use this rather simple example from the history of India. Englishmen
prohibited Indian citizens to cook salt. And one day on the coast there
were 10 Hindus cooking salt without any hesitation. Policemen came and
brought these Hindus to the prison. In a day there were 100 Hindus on
the coast cooking salt. Policemen came and brought all of them to the
prison. The next day there were 10000 Hindus on the coast cooking salt.
Then Englishmen revoked the law. Why? Because it is impossible to place
so many people in prison. And all of them were cooking
salt and it was impossible to imprison some part and let go another part
of them. So, such a law can not exist, because it violated the principles
of law-based government, and Great Britain was a law-based country.
What would happen in the communist country? The first day when 10 Hindus
were cooking salt policemen would come and beat everyone, put 6 in prison,
and send 4 back home and everyone would be thinking "Why did the
police let them go?" And additionally police would put in prison
3 people who were not at the coast at all - so that everyone would be
afraid. Because no matter if I cook salt or not, if authorities want to
put me in prison they will, if they do not want - they will not. Because
communist country is not a law-based government, it is very important
for protection of human rights.
Recently we had very strange laws. For example, someone would take money
and go to Germany to buy a car. Finally saved money, went to another country
and bought a car, and on the border learnt that custom tax became ten
times more yesterday. And he has nothing to do and it is actually easier
for him to leave this car, than to pay the tax. It is an example of not
law-based government, too, because a person does not know what will happen
in the future and what the government will do. The problem of law-based
government exists not only for police and criminal legislation, but it
exists in everyday life. We must know the laws and believe that the government
will adhere to them.
RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Rights and freedoms appear together in majority of constitutions of our
countries. Here is the part of Polish Constitution where my rights are
discussed. It is called "Rights and responsibilities of citizens".
And school laws say "Rights and responsibilities of students".
It means that if you do your responsibilities, then we, the authorities,
will guarantee your rights. From the point of view of human rights - it
is a purest nonsense.
Why? I have rights just because I am a human. They evolve from my human
dignity. I do have responsibilities before the government, but this is
a totally different problem. They are the result of the government that
we built and rights that we empowered it with.
There are no philosophical grounds here and I have rights and freedoms
independent from the fact whether I do my responsibilities, or not. The
government may punish me, if I do not fulfill my responsibilities, but
my rights do not depend on it.
Speaking of responsibilities I can shortly say how many there are all
in all. There are only four. The first responsibility is to pay taxes.
If I don not pay taxes then government will not be able to fulfill its
main functions: organize army, police, court. Second responsibility -
to protect the motherland. If I am the citizen of my country and someone
is threatening it I am obliged to protect it. It does not necesserily
mean that I should take a gun and go shoot people. One can protect in
different ways, but it is my responsibility to somehow be involved in
protectionof the motherland.
Everything is more complicated with the third one. Some people say, and
they are wrong, that the citizen must adhere to laws. It is not so. Citizens
have right to violate laws. I think that majority of us violated the laws
in commmunist times. All revolutions, all underground activity - it was
a violation of laws. But when I violated laws of my country I felt that
I was fulfilling my citizen's responsibility, I was feeling that I should
violate these laws and it is just. I thought that the government of my
country was not my government and that my counrty was governed by someone
who should not have been doing that.
And now we are talking about democratic country. One can violate laws
as well, but it is a whole theory of resistance to illegal government.
If I feel that I live here and it is my country, and there is a democratic
balanced active government, but there is a law that I do not agree with,
that I don't like and I think this law is immoral and it hurts people
- then I can become an official infringer of this law, but my responisibility
is to resign myself to the court's decision. It is my civil responsibility.
And others will see that I am injailed, and more and more people will
pay attantion at this fact, and more people will be against the law and
the law will change. We do no hide, we violate the laws that we think
are bad for us, but we resign ourselves to the court decisions. Many of
us were hiding before, but we had an excuse - majory of us thought that
the government of our country was not our government, and it was an excuse
for us - we did not go in jail, we simply tried to hide.
And the last - fourth civil responsibility. It is very simple. To overthrow
the government that violates human rights. If through democratic election
or some other way government, formed by people, violates human rights
and serves its own needs, but not people's needs, this government must
be overthrown. It is also a responsibility of a citizen. Interestingly,
in the first version of French constitution it was the responsibility
of citizens to overthrow the government that starts serving its own needs
but not people's needs. But with time this line disappeared and now it
does not exist in French constution any more.
These are all responsibilities of citizens. There are no more. There are
responsibilities about wife, neighbour, but this is another kind of responsibilities
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