Soviet Culture December 19, 1989
POLIITICAL CLUB SC
On Human Rights in a Rule-of-Law State
This December's political life is marked by the growing interest to the General Declaration of Human Rights adopted on December 10, 1948 at the Third Session of the UNO General Assembly.
Preamble of the Declaration proclaims as the highest aspiration "creation of a world in which all people will enjoy freedom of speech and persuasions and will be free of terror and poverty".
That is why priority in the lawmaking activity of the Supreme Soviet and the Congress of the People's Deputies of the USSR is given to the regulatory acts that have a reference to the situation with human rights and liberties in our country. These issues are also much debated by practicing lawyers and scholars.
An expanded meeting of the Human Rights Chair of the All-Union Law Correspondence School dedicated to the Declaration's anniversary was held the other day. We are publishing extracts from the reports of its participants.
"Double Bottom"...
of Legislation
Ernest AMETISTOV
Doctor of Law, Member of the Public Commission on Humanitarian Cooperation and Human Rights of the Soviet Committee
for European Security.
Further development of human rights in our country depends, in my opinion, not only on the position of authorities but people as well. For hundreds of years the concept of paternalism when all their freedoms and liberties people used to associate with either benevolent Farther Tsar or great achievements of the beloved leaders has prevailed in Russia. Much has to be done to radically change the common people's attitudes towards the Law. We should go back to the pristine and ever-wise truths of the primitive law, which says that Man is endowed by birth with equal rights and liberties and shall respect similar rights and liberties of others.
The authorities have to realize that their activities to ensure and safeguard human rights and liberties are not an act of benevolence or something descent onto them from above, but rather conditions and a means of their survival. The history of our country and the recent developments in the countries of Eastern Europe provides indisputable evidence in this respect.
Besides, we need to make concrete steps to improve our legislation relating to human rights.
In so doing we have to meet, in my opinion, several conditions.
First: Our human rights legislation should be based on the international norms and regulations. We must draw on the world democracy's thousand-year wisdom and experience, which we so acutely need now. Consequently, we need to introduce in our Constitution and the Law on Procedure for the Conclusion, Execution and Denunciation of International Agreements of the USSR a provision about their prevalence over the national legislation. Besides, international agreements should be directly applied in our courts.
Second: We know that only 25 per cent of our regulatory acts are laws while the rest are bylaws often contradictory to the former. Hence, we need to introduce in our Constitution a new provision to ensure that the rights and duties of our citizens be only regulated by laws - a measure that would help to stop the practice of reference law where is currently the core of the law abuse.
I understand that this would increase the amount of lawmaking in our parliament but, in my opinion, the more defined and detailed are the laws the easier it would be to part with the dictate of numerous departments and organizations issuing bylaws.
Lawsuits to protect the rights of citizens should be instituted more readily. A complainant shall be held harmless and indemnified not only for a material loss, but for a moral loss valued in monetary terms as well. In US practice lawsuits for infringement on personal rights in the amounts of hundreds of millions of dollars are not infrequent. What if we could sue our bureaucrat for the amount ten times his salary and let him pay - fine him personally, not ministry or department? It would work.
Parallel to an effective system of human rights protection in courts we need to establish an institution of human watch activists at all levels of Soviets. Unfortunately, the Committee for Glasnost, Rights and Petitions of Citizens has not so far assumed this responsibility.
And, finally, I believe that citizens whose legitimate claims were not satisfied in our country have the right to apply to the UNO Human Rights Committee. For this purpose we need to ratify a facultative protocol to the International Pact of Civil and Political Rights.
