The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) declared yesterday that the impending consultation on corporal punishment, sexual orientation and the death penalty must be rights-based and called for a good faith role by the government.
The human rights body also recommended that the consultation should focus on specific legal amendments on all three issues with the intention of submitting them to Parliament.
According to a press release from the GHRA yesterday, the body is in full support for a consultation process which “genuinely seeks understanding and acceptance of the government’s ethical and legal obligations to implement human rights standards as they apply to corporal punishment, sexual orientation and the death penalty.”
In the meantime, the GHRA has welcomed the announcement by Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon that the government intends to launch consultations on the three thorny issues.
However, the human rights body said that while it is disposed to give the government the benefit of substantial doubt, its support for such a process “is conditional on it being a good faith effort to promote solutions which respect the relevant human rights involved.”
The GHRA contended that Guyana does not need consultations which encourage divisiveness, and the body slammed Dr. Luncheon for being “disingenuous” in seeking to project the impression that the government is “starting from scratch” in bringing up public consultations on these three issues, especially, sexual orientation.
Widespread consultations on the issue took place during the constitutional reform process of 2000, the human rights body noted, and the Constitutional Reform Commission (CRC) comprised representatives of every sector of civil society, labour, religious groups, Bar Association, Youth, Amerindians, etc.
“Members fanned out all over the country for consultations and received at sittings opinions from groups and individuals on that issue. At the end of the day the CRC unanimously recommended that in Guyana there should be no discrimination against anyone on the ground of that person’s sexual orientation.
“The recommendation was forwarded to Parliament and unanimously accepted by members of the Assembly. The Bill was then sent to President Jagdeo for the formality of assent but he refused to assent to it when faced with religious opposition.”
According to the GHRA, “what the society now needs from the government is positive leadership in these areas. What the society does not need is yet another demonstration of how indifferent certain factions of the society are to the consequences of violence against children (corporal punishment), or to deliberate cruelty (capital punishment) or to stigmatize people with sexual orientations different to our own.”
Legal amendments
The GHRA posited that “since any open-ended invitation will predictably fuel discord, encourage disrespect and end in greater divisiveness,” it proposes that “the consultation focus on specific legal amendments on all three issues with the intention of submitting them to Parliament.”
Fragmenting the consultation among three ministries, the GHRA said, is “unhelpful since the reason they are problematic is identical, namely, all three cases pose challenges to human dignity.”
The GHRA also asserted that the consultation must be rights-based and not opinion-oriented, arguing that “the history of human rights is a history of progressively recognizing and respecting new dimensions of the human person.”
The human rights body also pointed out that “the abolition of slavery symbolized recognition that all people are equal in dignity; abolition of torture in all circumstances recognizes bodily integrity as inviolable; recognition of the rights of women, of children, of persons with disabilities, of indigenous peoples, all reflect an evolving appreciation of what it means to be human.”
And citing the UN’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process, the GHRA observed that it “reflects a growing international consensus that this progressive extension of respecting rights of all people is the hallmark of a civilized society.”
Absorbing and promoting these rights, the GHRA added, is “the sign both of an attentive and caring government and also of courageous national political, civic and religious leadership.”
In other words, the human rights body added, “government cannot in good faith launch a consultation around human rights issues without presenting to the nation the wealth of evidence which has strengthened a growing international and regional consensus against the death penalty and corporal punishment and for recognition of differing sexual orientations.”
If the government promotes its case in this way and loses, the GHRA said, it can then hold its head up internationally, regionally and domestically as “having upheld its human rights responsibilities.”
The GHRA also emphasized that civic morality is primarily rooted in the ethical principles of human rights and not religion, and suggested that “official edginess on these issues reflects in part antagonism among some faith-based factions toward change.”
However, it is not the government’s job to find common ground with religious opinion on these or any issues, the GHRA maintained.
At the end of the day, according to the human rights body, “the ethical drivers for the positions government adopts ought to be the human rights principles enshrined in the Constitution and international instruments it has ratified, particularly the human rights meta-principle that all human beings are equally deserving of esteem.”
Most people will agree, the GHRA observed, that there is scope in a secular democracy for reasonable accommodation of religious beliefs when that accommodation does not affect the rights and freedoms of others, but there is a growing need in Guyana for clarity between what is religious and what is properly secular.
This concern, the GHRA suggested, is prompted by “the ruling party’s penchant for appointing prominent religious figures to political office unaccompanied by any requirement to publicly commit themselves to serve all Guyanese citizens with equal esteem.”
Moreover, a new practice of holding ‘official’ religious services in government ministries is also disturbing, the GHRA said.
It also contended that the most serious and fundamental transgression of the distinction between religious and secular occurred with the announced intention of President Jagdeo, endorsed by his successor President Ramotar, to have the State establish and fund a religious TV Channel.
According to the human rights body, this proposed use of public funds for the promotion and support of religion in Guyana’s secular state “is clearly unconstitutional.”
