Fundamental Rights

This post is probably the most controversial, so I'll keep it brief.

Protecting fundamental rights, or (from another perspective) limiting the powers of Parliament to curtail rights by ordinary law, is one of the key features separating a free society from an oppressive society. Parliament's hand has usually been light, but has sometimes been quite heavy, notably in the COVID response, though other periods of history such as the Muldoon era and the 1950s have also been regarded as characterised by heavy-handed legislation.

New Zealand has, famously, not one, but two Bills of Rights: The 1688 and 1990 Acts. The catalogue of rights that are protected is extensive, but they're subject to the "justified limitation" exception, and to explicit override by Parliament. The danger is obvious.

I'm going to start off with three things, only three, that Parliament should not be able to touch. Some of these aren't even mentioned, or are mentioned in other ways.

  1. Mental and spiritual integrity. No-one should be punished by the State for holding the wrong ideas or attitudes, or tortured or brainwashed into changing his or her ideas or attitudes. (Public expression of ideas or attitudes is potentially a different thing, but even there, the limits should be few and far between, especially as concerns political matters.)
  2. Physical integrity. With limited and well understood exceptions, no-one should be forced to accept, or punished for not accepting, any medical intervention, whether treatment or prophylaxis. The exceptions being the insane, the unconscious (except where living wills or enduring powers of attorney go against the treatment), and children. Even in the case of children, the decision should rest with the parents or legal guardians, and refusal to consent to treatment must not be, by itself, sufficient grounds to permanently or temporarily remove guardianship. Those who are truly bad and unfit parents will have offered the Courts plenty of other excuses.
  3. Maintenance of life. No-one should be prevented from growing and eating food for himself, his family, and the livestock he uses for food or clothing on land that he lawfully occupies. This does not mean that all farming or homesteading practices are or ought to be acceptable, and a freedom to grow food for personal consumption doesn't imply a freedom to carry on large-scale commercial farming in a socially or environmentally irresponsible manner. But measures making it difficult or expensive for ordinary people to access ordinary, natural food should be off the table.

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