Reform
In January 2011, Mathew Batsiua, Minister for Health, Justice and Sports, addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council within the context of Nauru's Universal Periodic Review. Summarising Nauru's report to the Council, he stated that the country was undergoing legal reforms with an aim to improve guarantees on human rights. He drew the Council's attention, in particular, to the Nauruan constitutional referendum of 2010, which had aimed unsuccessfully to amend the Constitution and expand its Bill of Rights. Batsiua stated: "Had the referendum received the required support, the constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms of the people of Nauru would have been something that all nations of the world might have aspired to. It would have been the first Constitution in the world to protect the rights of disabled persons, and the second in the region, after Papua New Guinea, to provide for the protection of environmental rights. It would have prohibited the death penalty, guaranteed the rights of children, recognised the right to receive education and health. It would have enshrined the right to receive maternity leave, and introduced a right to access information, among other things." In addition, he stated Parliament was considering institutional and legal reforms to create the office of an ombudsman, and review Nauru's criminal code, "much of which remains unchanged since 1899". The decriminalisation of "homosexual activity between consenting adults" was "under active consideration".
Read more about this topic: Nauruan Law
Famous quotes containing the word reform:
“When I go into a museum and see the mummies wrapped in their linen bandages, I see that the lives of men began to need reform as long ago as when they walked the earth. I come out into the streets, and meet men who declare that the time is near at hand for the redemption of the race. But as men lived in Thebes, so do they live in Dunstable today.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“And let Reform her columns roll.
With thunder peal, and lightening flash.
We’ll preach deliverance to the soul.
‘Mid proud Oppression’s waning crash.”
—Ignis, U.S. women’s magazine contributor. The Genius of Liberty, pp. 9-10 (November 1853)