HALOS AND BLACK GOWNS

Let's draw a line through a bill of rights (James Allen, Sydney Morning Herald, September 26th, 2005)

So adopt a bill of rights, as Canada, the US, Britain and New Zealand have done, and you transfer a chunk of power to unelected judges to draw some of these contentious lines, under the cover provided by the amorphous, appealing language of rights.

Without a bill of rights in place, these difficult, debatable social policy lines are drawn on the basis of elections, voting and letting the numbers count. With a bill of rights in place the unelected judges decide - though ironically they, too, decide by voting; four justices' votes beat three. Victory does not go to the judge writing the most moving judgement or the one with the most references to moral philosophy.

What makes a bill of rights, and its transfer of power to judges, appear attractive is the unspoken assumption that the moral lines drawn by judges are somehow always the right lines, that a committee of ex-lawyers somehow has a pipeline to godly wisdom and greater moral perspicacity than secretaries, plumbers and regular voters. A good many judges, human rights lawyers and legal academics may happen to think this. I do not. Most Australians so far do not.

It’s the greatest political con job since the Divine Right of Kings.