The former Attorney General of India, Mr Soli Sorabjee
outlined the experience of India with the
fundamental
freedoms provided under that country's independence
constitution. Dr Rajeev Dahvan also discussing the Indian
Constitution, suggested that Hong
suggested that Hong Kong might provide a
microcosm of new constitutional arrangements, suitable to be
considered in the numerous societies
societies in which the
in which the assertion
of peoples' rights for separate
for separate treatment within a wider
nation could be respected. The analogy of the Kurds was
referred to as were developments in the Baltic and Balkans in
Europe.
Dato' Param Cumaraswamy of Malaysia outlined the
difficulties which had arisen in Malaysia in the judicial
enforcement of basic rights when the Executive Government
took steps to remove senior judges of that country. Justice
Sarmiento of the Supreme Court of the Philippines explained
the difficulties of human rights enforcement in the
conditions prevailing in that country.
There followed sessions on
substantive rights.
Professor Kevin Boyle of the University of Essex outlined the
importance of freedom of
freedom of expression
as a key to the
enforcement of other rights. A number of Canadian speakers
explained the experience with the Canadian Charter of Rights
and Freedoms. This was highly relevant to Hong Kong as
Canada, like Hong Kong, had endured for most of its modern
history without a statement of legally enforceable
fundamental rights. Madam Justice Bertha Wilson, a
judge of the Supreme Court of Canada outlined developments
affecting women and the family under the constitutional
protection of privacy in Canada. Justice Walter Tarnopolsky
former
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