Summary

This report examines how Civil Society in the form of human rights organisations responds to Human Rights Justifications (HRJs) through the consultation process for two recently presented legislative inquiry reports: Ds 2024:30 and SOU 2024:93. HRJs are when the State uses human rights to justify its own decisions and actions. The purpose of human rights is not for the state to use them as a tool to justify its actions and decisions, but rather to protect individuals from a state that abuses its power over the individuals living in the country. When the state uses HRJs, there is a risk that the function of human rights will change: from individuals being regarded as rights holders and states being regarded as potential violators, to states using human rights as an instrument of governance, The results of our research show that when the state uses human rights to justify its decisions, an effective response addressing rights-focused issues requires resource-intensive legal expertise. Some organisations have relevant experience, but not all organisations have the relevant capacity not surprisingly given that their key activities are to deliver activities aimed at helping children rather than legal matters. As a result, there is a risk that organisations will tend to focus instead on user/interest- and needs-based arguments, where they do have significant expertise, rather than on rights-based arguments. This means that the democratic dialogue between the legislator and Civil Society is shifted from a child rights perspective (emphasising that the state has obligations and the individual child has rights that the state must comply with by law), to whether children have interests or needs that the state can choose whether or not to address. The cost and availability of legal expertise can therefore be a barrier to Civil Society’s participation in the democratic process and risks Civil Society being less able to voice effective criticism and hold the state to account, including challenging the normalisation of using human rights arguments to restrict human rights themselves.

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