First Freedoms Under Fire Special Workshop

SW 22– First Freedoms Under Fire Special Workshop

Convenors: Angus J. L. Menuge; Barry W. Bussey

Contact: Angus.Menuge@cuw.edu; barrybussey@gmail.com

Our proposed special workshop continues many others.  At IVR’s Frankfurt meeting (2011), Angus Menuge led a special workshop on the foundation of human rights, resulting in Legitimizing Human Rights (Ashgate, 2013).  At IVR’s Washington, DC meeting (2015), Angus led a workshop on religious liberty, resulting in Religious Liberty and the Law (Routledge, 2017).  At the IVR meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland (2019), Angus joined forces with Barry Bussey for a workshop on human dignity, resulting in a two-volume collection, The Inherence of Human Dignity (Anthem Press, 2021).  Angus and Barry led a follow-up workshop at the IVR meeting in Bucharest (2022) on the role of conscience in law, resulting in Conscience and Rights (LexisNexis, 2024).  At the 2024 IVR meeting in Seoul, Barry joined forces with Iain Benson, and led a workshop on the rule of law and its relationship with natural law, which will be published soon. For details, see: https://www.lexview.ca/books-1.

Building on these previous workshops, the goal of the present workshop is to explore the challenges posed to the “first freedoms” protected by various constitutions, charters, and human rights instruments.  These first freedoms include: freedom of speech, assembly, and association,  freedom of religion and rights of conscience, the inviolability of the person, rights of privacy and security, property rights, freedom to dissent from the policies of governments, large corporations, and globalist organizations, freedom from imprisonment without due process of law, from termination of employment or suspension of rights of mobility or worship without just cause, and from medical policies and human subject experimentation that violate informed consent and/or rights of conscience.

This workshop aims to:

• Clarify the nature and justification of important first freedoms;
• Analyze what distinguishes “first freedoms” from civil liberties;
• Distinguish legitimate first freedoms from spurious demands of license;
• Consider how best to handle conflicts arising from first freedom claims (for example, when free exercise of one religion may impair the rights of those of other or no religions, or when security conflicts with rights to bear arms);
• Assess the extent to which these first freedoms are either upheld or denied;
• Evaluate the conditions under which first freedoms may be limited or abridged;
• Explore strategies for increased understanding and protection of first freedoms.

First freedoms defined:

Justice Ivan Rand in the 1953 Saumur decision at the Supreme Court of Canada stated, “Strictly speaking, civil rights arise from positive law; but freedom of speech, religion and the inviolability of the person, are original freedoms which are at once the necessary attributes and modes of self-expression of human beings and the primary conditions of their community life within a legal order.” He reminds us that it is only in the excessive exercise of these “original” or “first” freedoms that they are limited. For example, defamation limits freedom of speech. However, there are no prior restraints placed on these first freedoms.

William Blackstone observed, “The absolute rights of man, considered as a free agent, endowed with discernment to know good from evil, and with power of choosing those measures which appear to him to be most desirable, are usually summed up in one general appellation, and denominated the natural liberty of mankind. This natural liberty consists properly in a power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, unless by the law of nature; being a right inherent in us by birth, and one of the gifts of God to man at his creation, when he endued him with the faculty of free will.” https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/blackstone-on-the-absolute-rights-of-individuals-1753#c_lf1387-01_footnote_nt335.

Lord Brougham stated, “As all government is made for the benefit of the community, the people have a right, not only to be governed, but to be well governed; and not only to be well governed, but to be governed as well as possible; that is, with as little expense to their natural freedom and their resources as is consistent with the nature of human affairs. Towards this point of perfection all nations ought constantly to be directing their course.” [Emphasis added.]  “The people ought to have the greatest liberty they can safely enjoy, and the cheapest government that suffices to regulate their affairs. It is a right which happily is now understood by them, and the sooner their rulers learn it and comply with it the better.” (Political Philosophy, Vol. 1, pp. 26-27 and p. 64).