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Breaking the law in private
Published: Friday | June 27, 2014 0 Comments
By Peter Espeut
An often-spouted mantra, of both the ganja and the gay lobby, is that people have a constitutional right to privacy, and should be free to do whatever they wish in the privacy of their homes.
A recent spout of this was by learned counsel Anthony Lord Gifford ('Ganja proposals well intended but flawed', June 24, 2014), quoting the Charter of Rights in the Jamaican Constitution: "The right to 'respect for, and protection of, private and family life, and privacy of the home', is violated by a law which penalises both the homeowner and the user if ganja is smoked in a private living room or grown in a private yard."
The Gleaner, which has joined the gay lobby, spouted in its editorial of Sunday, June 5, that the law against buggery "allows the State ... to invade the privacy of people's bedrooms".
It may make a catchy slogan, but I am not sure how useful it is as a principle of law: that the right to privacy means that that people have a constitutional right to do whatever they wish in the privacy of their homes. I would hazard a guess that, in Jamaica, most laws are broken in private, and many in the privacy of the home. And here I do not only refer to murder and spousal abuse. Many lotto scammers do their dirty work in the privacy of their homes. And I wonder how much political corruption, bribery and graft takes place in the privacy of the home?
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/2...cleisure2.html
Published: Friday | June 27, 2014 0 Comments
By Peter Espeut
An often-spouted mantra, of both the ganja and the gay lobby, is that people have a constitutional right to privacy, and should be free to do whatever they wish in the privacy of their homes.
A recent spout of this was by learned counsel Anthony Lord Gifford ('Ganja proposals well intended but flawed', June 24, 2014), quoting the Charter of Rights in the Jamaican Constitution: "The right to 'respect for, and protection of, private and family life, and privacy of the home', is violated by a law which penalises both the homeowner and the user if ganja is smoked in a private living room or grown in a private yard."
The Gleaner, which has joined the gay lobby, spouted in its editorial of Sunday, June 5, that the law against buggery "allows the State ... to invade the privacy of people's bedrooms".
It may make a catchy slogan, but I am not sure how useful it is as a principle of law: that the right to privacy means that that people have a constitutional right to do whatever they wish in the privacy of their homes. I would hazard a guess that, in Jamaica, most laws are broken in private, and many in the privacy of the home. And here I do not only refer to murder and spousal abuse. Many lotto scammers do their dirty work in the privacy of their homes. And I wonder how much political corruption, bribery and graft takes place in the privacy of the home?
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/2...cleisure2.html