Human rights issues are among the most heating debates throughout history. On another side of a coin, there is an idea of democracy which considered a government system where people is the central actor.
While human rights are embedded in every individual as core elements of human existence, is democracy always go hand in hand with human rights? Is it possible, to some extent, for democratic decision-making process infringes the idea of human rights?
As mentioned before, human rights are the essential part of our existences and highly demanded our survival regardless of our citizenships, religions or beliefs, gender, races, and age. Human rights have no dimensional barriers as well.
However, if an individual is a citizen of a country, their human rights are protected under legal and political systems. If so, how about, for instance, Malaysians living in Cambodia? Will they be treated as equal to Cambodians, with the same level of protection even though they have different legal systems due to the different citizenships?
This question is the root of the idea that sometimes under certain circumstances, human rights lose its universalisation, often being referred to as particularisation.
Our identities somehow limit the exercise of human rights justification no matter how hard we try to convince that human rights are a universal idea whose believers are the whole global citizens. However, this does not mean that human rights do not progressively develop over decades.
If we trace back to the Enlightenment era until the real implementation of human rights took place during the Declaration of Independence of 1776 and universally progressed until the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 was being initiated, we can observe a solid development despite the possible limitations.
Today, the idea of human rights is fully understood, declared, and enforced by international institutions, such as the UN Human Rights Council.
Then, why there is such a thing as particularisation of human rights? This is partly because, human rights are intangible ideas, so the application is needed to gain meaning and be easily understood by people.
According to Georg Lohmann in his piece titled Menschenrechte und ‘Globales Recht’ (directly translated as Human Rights and ‘Global Law’), describes, a national legal system is a right media to translate human rights as a social concept into a more solid form.
A national legal system can assist the awareness and application of human rights in democratic legitimation. However, a national legal system is valid only for that country—take a look at a case that previously mentioned, about Malaysians living in Cambodia. Because, when we discuss a national legal system, the recognised legal subjects of that system are only those who are within the framework of that particular country, so, as the consequences, when human rights are translated into a legal system, it loses its universality and becomes a particular recognition.
In certain conditions where human rights are not protected by law, human rights still part of our existences. With or without a legal system, every individual is a human rights holder from the day we were born. That is why the protection of human rights at the global level and further adaptation by a national legal system is highly needed.
In a democratic country, every individual is acknowledged and has a right to participate in decision-making processes. Does this necessarily mean democracy can only be implemented once the human rights of the citizens are recognised? The short answer is yes. From now on, if democracy is a system whose power and autonomy lies in the human rights concept, then this concept serves as the foundation of the system.
Article 21 of the Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 mentions:
1. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
2. Everyone has the right to equal access to public service in his country.
3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
Seeing human rights from an ideal democratic perspective is very comforting; imagine individuals in a country living harmoniously and respect each other’s choices where their government legitimate their rights in which they have equal opportunity to participate in political processes and their aspirations are equally heard.
Now open your eyes, leave it as a utopic idea, and see the ugly truths! It is true that in reality, the practice of democratic can somehow violate human rights. For example, if the majority of citizens vote for an option that has the risk to discriminate against a minority, then like it or not, the possibility still must be implemented due to the unanimous consent.
Human rights and democracy must go in parallel as they are correlated. However, portraying an ideal image of these two go hand in hand is almost impossible in the context of Southeast Asia.
Under the governing party of the National League for Democracy—a political party whose name does not resemble the reality in the country, Myanmar has been showcasing little or no respect towards human rights as the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in the country has entered the troubles phase in which thousands of them have been killed and more than 600,000 of them have fled to other countries. If you expect the National League for Democracy can direct Myanmar towards democracy, think again.
For different reasons, stories from Cambodia mark the same concern. Cambodia has begun to carry out a controversial law to demolish NGOs to avoid shush opinions of civil society, sidelining opposition leaders by charging them with some allegations.
The democratic recession also happened in Thailand due to a coup launching in May 2014, while in Indonesia, Islamist groups currently gain the upper hand over the minorities. Too many violations against human rights happen in Southeast Asia, most of them under the name to uphold and enforce democracy.
The human rights education to make people more aware of this social construct is critical to establish within Southeast Asian countries, with an aim to strengthen democracy as the long-term impact. Once each aware of human rights that live within every individual, they would be able to fight for justice.