Constitution and Human Rights: |10 February 2017
Bernard Georges talks to the youth on the Seychellois Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms
• ‘If you do not know your rights, we will not go anywhere’
It seems that there is nothing else that Bernard Georges – attorney at law and Member of the National Assembly (MNA) for Les Mamelles – likes to talk more about: The Laws of Seychelles.
The sitting Judge on the Comesa (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa) Court of Justice who was part of the Commission which drafted the Constitution of the Third Republic in 1993 recently took time to give a passionate lecture on Constitution and Human Rights to a gathering of mostly young people. Organised by UN Youth Seychelles, an NGO focused on promoting sustainable development goals (SDGs) and fostering youth participation and representation, the talk was held at the Seychelles National Youth Council (SNYC) conference room at Orion Mall.
With the chosen theme of “So many doors and yet not all of us have the keys”, the organisation wanted to show that we cannot achieve peace and justice without knowing our fundamental rights which are guaranteed by the Constitution.
For that, Mr Georges who from the onset remarked that compared to other Laws which are preventive, the Constitution is the Supreme Law of permissive or progressive nature which gives rights and not limitations to the citizens, talked about the Seychellois Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. This is the 3rd Chapter of the Constitution, which is separated into a simple structure of 5 parts. He explained why the Charter of 25 Articles (Articles 15 to 39) – of which fourteen are civil and political rights and eleven socio-economic ones – is found there; between the Nationhood Articles which themselves follow the Preamble and the three Branches of government.
“Chapter 3 is there because government administers the Nation. If the government as the administrator mismanages, we the people suffer. In order to prevent the government from doing whatever it wants, we have to put barriers to protect us. This Chapter serves as a buffer between Chapters 2 and 4 and prevents the government from taking arbitrary decisions such as acquiring land unlawfully or closing down newspapers,” he explained.
He emphasised that as the start of the Preamble and first three words of the Constitution state, “We the People” are more important than the administrators and the three branches of government which they control. This is from where originates our Fundamental Rights as defined in Articles 15 to 28. They include among others, Right to Life, Property, Assembly and Association, Privacy, Liberty, Equal Protection of the Law and Access to Official Information.
“Everything the State does affect each and every one of us. If we do not put a limit, the State will go all over us. So every citizen must be endowed with the same rights. There is no hierarchy in rights as each one is as important as the other. That is why rights are enshrined in a Constitution where they cannot be removed. Old ones are never removed, but new ones are added,” he goes on to state.
Yet, among those fundamental rights, only two are absolute: Right to dignity and Right to Fair and Public Hearing. Mr Georges explained that all the others have got derogations, meaning that “the Constitution line is not a flat one and Rights have got limits”. For example, Right to life in cases of self defense and legal abortions and Right to property in instances of acquisition for public purpose. He insisted that just as Rights, these derogations are necessary in a democratic society. However, they have to be stated by Law.
He however insisted that exception to the Right cannot be adopted as the norm. For example he says, for the Police to detain somebody for 24 hours is not a Right, but rather an exception to the right. So, a policeman has no right to detain a suspect for up to 24 hours if the length of detention can be shorter.
Mr Georges has however warned that one day, all those rights, combined with what are now auxiliary or aspirational ones in Articles 29 to 39, will become one single set of human rights. This means that the trend is that eventually people will claim Rights to Work, Education, Health Care, Shelter, Social Security or Safe Environment as Fundamental Rights and will sue government if they are not ensured.
The day this happens, we would have surely gone a long way on a lengthy constitutional journey. Mr Georges traces the origin of the Constitution from when one single person – the king in his castle - had power over all his citizens. He calls this “an erosion of power from absoluteness to power invested in all citizens”.
“The Constitution exists for the People. We have kicked the king out of his castle and we have our rights. There is no way around it. You can hold it for a long time but one day power will go down to the People,” he warns.
Retracing history, he goes back to the successive documents which have vested power in the People: The Ten Commandments, Magna Carta, Bill of Rights of 1684, Declarations des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen of 1789, US Declaration of Independence and US Constitution, Independence of British colonies between the 1950s to 70s. Added to those, are supranational charters such as the UN Declaration, African Declaration and the European Convention on Human Rights.
As for the constitutional history of Seychelles, he says it started with the French Constitution of 1789 as our country was then a French colony. As Britain does not have a Constitution in itself, we consequently had three modern ones in 1976, 1979 and 1993. Even if he comments that in 1979 some rights were removed from the Constitution we acquired at independence in 1976, he affirms that “the country did not fall apart as we do not need rights to live, but we need rights to live well and equally”.
Ultimately maintains the seasoned lawyer, you have to know your rights. For this to happen, you need to read the Constitution which as the Bible, he unfortunately feels remains so far strongly underrated. And in case your rights are violated, he advises that there are remedies for breach of rights. You can have recourse from competent authorities like the Ombudsman and the Human Rights Commission or you can even address your complaint directly to the government ministry or agency concerned or through your MNA.
“If you do not know your rights, we will not go anywhere,” Mr Georges concludes. But he reminds that our rights must be counterbalanced with our duties. Those are defined in Article 40 of the Constitution.
