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Human Rights
Sadurski. Wojciech. (1986) 60 "Equality Before the Law: A Conceptual Analysis." The Australian Law Review. (Pp.66-71)
Is everyone equal in the eyes of the law, regardless of creed, culture, or other group affiliation? Or should the law be made equal for everyone by considering the law's contextual application in society? It is this subtle distinction that Wojciech Sadurski (1986) grapples with in his article entitled "Equality Before the Law: A Conceptual Analysis." Sadurski comes down, in his opinion, squarely on the side of the second position. He suggests that to refuse to acknowledge individual differences and to enforce the law in the same fashion towards everyone in a society may actually reinforce societal structures of inequality rather than alleviate such strictures. This stands, he admits, in opposition to the liberal humanist tradition of Mill and Rousseau, on which most liberal democracies today were founded. (66-67)
Of course, some legal theorists still believe that actions alone should determine legal enforcement, not affiliation with any particular group. The idea behind such a color-blind concept may have once been noble, namely that an accident of birth should not inhibit one's equal access to justice. (68) Often to justify such 'color blind' applications of the law generates a system of categorization of the individual's protected status of having involuntary or immutable (such as race or gender) and voluntary (such as wealth or intelligence) characteristics that are likely to generate discriminatory policies. The latter characteristics are theoretically controllable, the former uncontrollable. But Sadurski calls the idea of wealth or education as entirely chosen or voluntary a legal as well as a cultural fiction. (70; 69)
Sadurski suggests that uncontrollable factors such as birth certainly do influence one's ability to gain in both money, education, and thus social status, and moreover to ignore race for those individuals from historically discriminated against groups with entirely 'color blind' laws is an act of bias in and of itself, given the social and historical circumstances in which the laws are operating. (71) Equality under the law, states Sadurski, means that the law is operating in a just fashion. (71) Thus, Sadurski makes a plea for law in context, rather than law in the absolute.
Equality Efficiency Arthur Okun argues that a clear line must be drawn between dollars and rights. At the heart of his argument is that there is an inherent conflict between the two in a capitalist democracy, and politicians can only resolve this conflict through "The Big Tradeoff." With respect to rights, Okun notes that they are fundamentally different from dollars in that they are inalienable and equally distributed, and that as
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342). All applicants should be treated equally regardless of race. Creating a more diverse student body may be an admirable goal, but it is not a legally valid one for use during the admissions process (p. 345). The Constitution does not guarantee the right to preferential treatment on the basis of past discrimination; the Constitution does, however, guarantee equally protection of the law. Court decisions have wavered over the
The states must also be ready to either establish tribunals and forums or be ready to create any other form of public institutions that would have the idea of prohibiting inequality and discriminations against women, and that would enforce equality among all members of society, irrespective of their gender. The state must, in addition, be prepared to ensure that all types of discriminations against women be eliminated, whether they
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