Juli 2004
Human Rights in Norway - as Low as they can Go
Human rights are a popular topic of conversation in Norway these days, not least
the rights defended by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in
Strasbourg. The focus, though, is on how fit we Norwegians are to instruct other
nations. Of realistic, reasonably objective assessment of the conditions at home
there is little evidence, likewise of a systematic effort to pull the Norwegian
legal instruments up to the standard they should have in the field of human
rights. In fact our society experiences a steady stream of cases in which
Norwegian citizens' elementary rights are violated and the victims left confused
and unable to defend themselves.
Why is this?
The hushing up
We Norwegians have a poor understanding of the importance of steady, free
and open flow of information made readily available to the public at large. In
general experience, the sustained publishing of detailed information about
unfair and abusive treatment on the part of the authorities in a country has
shown itself the be an effective means of getting those in power to behave
better towards the population they are to serve. Experience has also shown that
few other remedies work, at least not if not accompanied by making matters
public.
But freedom of speech has no great currency in our country. Propaganda
descending on us from our authorities continually tells us that confidentiality
in sensitive matters is an excellent virtue and the pressure to make citizens
shut up is very great. Two cases brought against Norway at the ECHR have at
least made clear that one is permitted to characterise publicly a doctor's
professional activities in strongly critical terms, and that it is allowed to
quote from official documents even should they reveal irregularities on the part
of our authorities.
That, however, is about as far as we, with the help of the ECHR, have got in the
field of fredom of speech in Norway.
Naïvety
The second important factor missing among Norwegians is a sceptical attitude
towards authorities and an understanding of what the concomitants of power and
bureaucratism are. We tend to take for granted that the authorities'
representatives - public servants - automatically dispense welfare and service
to the population; helpless disbelief is what hits us when that is not so.
A citizen who is deprived of his right perhaps tries going to the press, to the
local or national executive bodies, and to politicians, but with scant result.
He then respectfully goes to the courts. Norway has defined itself to be "under
the rule of law" and law is there to serve the ordinary life of ordinary people.
The citizen, however, experiences the results to be quite different from what he
expected. The state of affairs regarding our legal institutions can be
illustrated, I believe without distortion, through a few quotes from
representatives of the legal professions [translations are mine]:
- "The City of Bergen is not bound the Human Rights Convention, since it was
signed by Norway, not by Bergen" - (stated by a lawyer representing Bergen in a
case in which serveral people who had as children been placed in "children's
homes" in Bergen demanded compensation for what they had suffered there).
- "We cannot go against the police or the public prosecutor in this way - these
people are among our acquaintances" - (stated by the defence counsel of an
innocently accused man, when one of the man's witnesses was able to prove that
the police investigator's report of a questioning was untrue).
- "If the Supreme Court were to let the risk of liability to pay compensation
decide what freedom our Parliament should have to pass laws, we would be off the
track completely." - (stated by Inge Lorange Backer, a civil servant in the
Ministry of Justice, in an article in the law journal Lov og Rett 10/2003. The
compensation in question was one which the ECHR might award people who could
forseeably complain to Strasbourg that they were victims of punishment in
violation of the Human Rights Convention. Earlier in the article he writes: -
"The costs and inconveniences of an unnecessary reorganisation can be far greater
than the costs paid out in compensation." - My cynical eye reads this to mean
that here we have a high-ranking civil servant in the Ministry of Justice saying:
Norway should just go ahead and pass any laws we want regardless of whether they
might conflict with the human rights convention, and we should just shrug our
shoulders if this leads to condemnation of Norway in Strasbourg since the
compensation awarded to successful applicants by the ECHR is negligible. - Quite
so: It is enragingly modest. Perhaps our States would withdraw from the Court if
they were made to pay victims of their human rights offences a compensation
which matched the sufferings the state has inflicted?)
The trusting individual is reduced to hopelessness by these kinds of
preposterous legalism.
The Kurds
The organisation "Kurdish Human Rights Project" (KHRP) takes cases against
Turkey to the ECHR on behalf of Kurdish applicants with Turkish citizenship.
Reading about the efforts of the KHRP is instructive.
They have as their explicit program to bring out information, in every relevant
forum, about human rights violations against Kurds in the five countries with
large Kurdish populations. One way they accomplish this is by going to the Court
of Human Rights, since Turkey is a member state of the Court. They have taken
case after case to Strasbourg and have fought every inch of the way.
The organisation is independent of Turkish legal bodies and Turkish society, it
is based not in Turkey but in London. Its board and advisory group have a heavy
representation of British legal experts. These same jurists often function as
the applicants' advocates in the Court process. The KHRP and their helpers
therefore evidently know well how the Court works by now and they plan
far-sighted strategies to have the nature of the violations known and understood.
The early Kurdish cases were often not admitted to the Court. But the Kurds
persevered. The cases kept coming and won through to serious consideration. Now,
Turkey is quite regularly found guilty of violations of e.g. Article 6 (the
right to a fair trial by an independent and impartial tribunal), Article 13 (the
right to an effective remedy when a violation has occurred), Article 3 (prohibition
of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment), Article 2 (the
right to life). The efforts of the Kurds are formidable. There must be somebody
over there in London who is interested in justice.
In their cases before the ECHR, the Kurds also try to win acceptance for
statements whose content is something like: "Habitual violations of Article 6
have been allowed to develop in Turkey, sanctioned by the authorities." When
another couple of hundred cases are on the table in Strasbourg showing examples
of such violations, perhaps that will in itself serve to demonstrate that it is
a question of a habit having been allowed to develop ?
The Kurds have the edge on us. They have never been under the illusion that they
are dealing with a loyal state. They have understood that "We must do everything
ourselves, from scratch."
Norwegian citizens must learn from the Kurds and organise themselves in a
similar manner. The human rights Articles just mentioned, and several more, must
be fought for in order to be respected in Norway too, against an unwilling,
disrespectful, obstructive and offending state. I look forward to the time when
case after case arrives at the Strasbourg court saying: "In Norway, with the
full sanction of the Norwegian authorities, a routine has been allowed to
develop of violating Articles 6, 3, 13, 10 (the right to freedom of speech/information)
and 8 (the right to respect for one's private and family life)."
***
The author is a professor of linguistics at the University of Bergen. She works particularly on analysis and criticism of science and research, both in general and within areas of linguistics, psychology and child protection, and is a member of the scientific board of the Foundation for Forensic Psychology in Stockholm, Sweden. She is interested in social issues relating to human rights and health, and especially in the question of whether the views and actions of the social authorities and the courts are scientifcally based.***