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Human rights issue is mainly a problem of limitations of human rights. It is very easy to reach an agreement with a list of rights accepted by everybody, but it is difficult to define for the society the allowable limits of intervention of the power in human rights.
There are human rights, which should not be limited under any circumstances. A few of them:
- freedom from tortures
- freedom from slavery
- freedom of thoughts
- the right for a fair trial and a number of procedural rights
For most of rights and freedoms limits are allowed. However, the government should not limit the rights of human being according to its will.
The authorities can limit human rights only in the following cases.
Firstly, if the intervention of the authorities in the human rights is according to the law. This means, that every limitation of human rights must be distinctly written in the law. If there is not a limitation in the law, so the introduction of it will mean a violation of human rights, without reference to a person or body which ordered the instruction of limitation, its public benefit, etc. Thus, any limitation is illegitimately.
In the second place, the authorities can limit the human rights only for the protection of the public interests, and only in the case of the protection of a well-defined public interest. To the common public interests, for compliance of which the limits of human rights are allowable belong a national security, economic well-being of the country, public order, life and health of people, public health and morality. It is important to understand that a complex of public interests that justify the interference of the authorities for every of the human rights is different. For example, we can agree that for the economic well-being of the country the society can allow the state, in some cases, to violate the privacy of correspondence. We can hardly allow authorities to violate the freedom of religion, according to the same interests: it is impossible to explain how the realization of the freedom of religion can damage to the economic well-being of the country.
Thirdly, the input of limitations of human rights should be permissible in a democratic society. We can imagine that interference from the side of authorities in the rights and freedoms allows by law that it helps to protect the public interest, but herewith the entered limits are disproportionately, it leads to the actual diminution of the limited right. For example, one can imagine that the law of meetings and demonstrations allows some limits on their producing that rationally explained by national security, public order, life protection, health, morals, the rights and interests of other persons. One can imagine that in a number of limits the legislators will include a ban on rallies near the buildings occupied by public authorities. In this case, there is the law and the grounding of limits to protect the public interests. However, freedom of meetings will be nullified: their dissatisfaction, citizens can express far from the seat of those who have made a decision, with which they did not put up. For the dictatorship, such a ban is logical, but unacceptable for a democratic society.
The determination of the allowable interference of the authorities in the human rights for a democratic society — one of the most difficult problems in the field of human rights.
Doctor Sattam Hakem Alfaez, a representative of the International Organization «Shield» in the Middle East and North Africa
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