One of the things that depress me in the current state of affairs, is proletarian apathy to rights and regulations in the workplace and the wider world. Why would working people who pay their taxes, not want a form of protection in the unlikely event of false accusations made against them?

Human Rights

I am going to focus this blog on human rights. That being the right to a fair trial and the ability to justify or defend oneself in the event of accusations or arrests being made. With these rights scrapped an individual is in danger of being wrongfully charged and imprisoned without justification.

I will now offer a personal example that is clear in my head 36 years on, probably because it was so frightening. I was 18 years old with an underdeveloped front cortex leading to occasional minor scrapes with the law. I was out with my friends one evening when a series of fights broke out in the pub we were at.

Damaged Police Vehicle

It all came to a chaotic end with the police arriving as youths scattered in all directions. Someone decided it would be clever to lay the boot into a police vehicle, leaving it with several dents and smashed rear lights. No one knew who it was, so it was all speculation.

Anyway, the next day the police barged into my house and tried to arrest me for criminal damage. They said that they had witnesses and evidence, so I might as well fess up. I shat myself of course but as they tried to lead me away, my dad turned up and told them to clear off and come back with evidence. And they did clear off. They just went on their way, with tails between their legs.

Sliding Doors

What if they knew that I had no rights? They could have gone on the assumption someone gave them my name and arrested me. I would have lost my job and might have done a stretch in a detention centre. A sliding doors moment where my life would have changed based on a false accusation. That’s why we have human rights.

Human Rights are not just there to give Harold Shipman or the killer of Lee Rigby a fair trial. They are there to ensure humans are protected from wrongdoing. Harold Shipman and Rigby’s murderers got banged up for life anyway, so it’s not like human rights are in place to get people off the hook. They are there to make sure innocent people don’t get put on the hook.

If stupid people realised that, we might be in a better place.