Human rights group writes UK government

[3/24/2009]

Published on Tuesday, March 24, 2009

 

An 11 March letter from New York-based Human Rights Watch to the UK Secretary of State David Miliband urges London to restore protections of equality for the Cayman Islands in its new constitution.

“I write to urge your government’s support for full protections against discrimination in the new constitution of the Cayman Islands,” wrote Boris Dittrich, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights advocacy director for the group.

The letter arrives as local government prepares to campaign for 20 May national elections and a simultaneous referendum on the draft constitution, negotiated between the UK and six Cayman Islands groups, comprising the two main political parties and four civic organisations, including two influential church groups.

The most controversial section of the draft is the 28-point bill of rights and its Section 16, which originally mandated freedom from discrimination for everyone in the Cayman Islands.

“The present draft,” the Human Rights Watch letter said, “offers no protection against discrimination by the government in relation to rights not set out in the bill of rights. Discrimination in social and economic areas such as healthcare, provision of services, housing, employment and many others will be left out.”

The 30-year-old Manhattan-based Human Rights Watch says it has long sought “to focus international attention where human rights are violated”.

“Rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy,” the group says, “build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human-rights abuse”. The organisation seeks “deep-rooted change” and “greater justice and security to people around the world”.

Local debate has grown increasingly acrimonious as campaigners seek to persuade voters that, on the one hand, the bill of rights, however limited, represents a positive step, replacing a 1972 constitution that guarantees no rights at all, and offers the prospect of future liberalisation.

Those opposing the draft observe that church groups sought the changes to the bill to enable discrimination against homosexuals, but thereby reducing protections for everyone in the Cayman Islands.

Mr Dittrich wrote that the UK government had approved “the revised and even more limited version of the draft constitution”, despite reported remarks by FCO officials that it was “less than ideal”.

Mr Dittrich pointed to UK agreement for “free-standing” protections offered by the British Virgin Islands’ 2007 constitution, saying “there can be no justification for offering different treatment and lesser protection to the population of the Cayman Islands”.

He cited the Organisation of American States, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and an international agreement to halt discrimination against women as global benchmarks violated by Cayman’s proposed bill of rights.

In a 19 February public constitutional forum at the Family Life Centre, both Minister of Education Hon Alden McLaughlin and representatives from the Conference of Seventh Day Adventists acknowledged church opposition to a free-standing right because of fears of homosexuality.

The Cayman Minister’s Association said, “Our objection to the so-called ‘free-standing clause’ reflects our understanding that a free-standing right leaves open the door for wide-ranging judicial activism in the future and also for other abuses of Cayman’s legal and financial systems.”

On Friday, the Office of the Governor acknowledged it had seen the Dittrich letter, but declined comment.

“We will wait till the Secretary of State offers a reply,” said spokesman Alan Drury. “We have not seen a reply as of today. This is all part of the mood music we are hearing from the human rights groups on that part of the constitution.

“The issue was discussed in the constitutional talks, and perhaps [this issue] should have been raised then. Now this has perhaps opened the way for the public to dig a little deeper,” he said.

Sara Collins, Chair of the Cayman Islands Human Rights Committee, said she was aware of the letter, offering a brief reaction: “We hope that both the British Government and the Cayman Islands government will consider carefully the need to provide the fullest possible constitutional protection against discrimination for all people in the Cayman Islands.”

In his letter, Mr Dittrich closed by asking the UK government to reconsider its position:

“We urge you and your government to support the introduction of a new section 16 in the Cayman Islands constitution that will include a free-standing right not to be discriminated against in all aspects of life.”

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