Human Rights Act

A human rights act is a statute that sets out individual rights and freedoms under the law. Many jurisdictions have bills of rights enshrined into law and called the "Human Rights Act". This naming convention is commonly used in Commonwealth nations. The following nations have human rights acts:

Australia

ACT Human Rights Act 2004
Victoria Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2004

Canada

Canadian Human Rights Act, 1977
Human Rights Act 2003, an Act of the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut

Republic of Ireland

European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003

New Zealand

Human Rights Act 1993

United Kingdom

Human Rights Act 1998

United States

DC Human Rights Act 1997

Famous quotes containing the words rights act, human, rights and/or act:

    Love your enemies. I saw this admonition now as simple, sensible advice. I knew I could face an angry, murderous mob without even the beginning of fear if I could love them. Like a flame, love consumes fear, and thus make true defeat impossible.
    Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 2, ch. 2 (1962)

    Wilson adventured for the whole of the human race. Not as a servant, but as a champion. So pure was this motive, so unflecked with anything that his worst enemies could find, except the mildest and most excusable, a personal vanity, practically the minimum to be human, that in a sense his adventure is that of humanity itself. In Wilson, the whole of mankind breaks camp, sets out from home and wrestles with the universe and its gods.
    William Bolitho (1890–1930)

    Is a Bill of Rights a security for [religious liberty]? If there were but one sect in America, a Bill of Rights would be a small protection for liberty.... Freedom derives from a multiplicity of sects, which pervade America, and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.
    James Madison (1751–1836)

    If your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong to reply that you won’t. It is better and more becoming to intimate that you will do as she bids you, and then afterwards act quietly in the matter according to the dictates of your better judgment.
    Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)