Chairman of the Constitutional Court on the “limits of human rights”, loss of cultural identity and “xenophobia of the ethnic majority”

On May 16, Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by the Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Russia, Valery Zorkin, “The Rule of Law and the Security Imperative.” The author of the article discusses the boundaries of human rights (including the right of self-expression), recalling that “the rights of one person end where the freedom and rights of another person begin.”

To illustrate his thesis, he apparently refers to the February action of the Pussy Riot group and the reaction of representatives of the Russian Church to it.

“ It is precisely on the basis of law as a norm of human freedom ,” writes V. Zorkin, “ for example, public insult to the religious feelings of representatives of a particular confession (and we all know expressive examples related to the Muslim and Christian religions) is not only an immoral action, but also illegal, since it causes moral harm to followers of the religion, and therefore infringes on their rights .”

In his opinion, “the spread of the principle of the priority of human rights that has developed in the West” meets resistance in “cultures that are based primarily not on legal, but on moral and religious values,” in cultures where “individual freedom does not have priority over collective values, uniting people who are united in their adherence to common moral principles or religious tenets.” “The active promotion of the Western ideology of human rights,” in this case, “generates among representatives of other civilizations the fear of losing their cultural identity.”

The Chairman of the Constitutional Court is also convinced that it was “the priority protection of the rights of ethno-religious minorities <...> that created obvious and growing xenophobia of the ethnic majority”, “the emergence of groups with radical, even neo-fascist, ideology.”

Sources

• Zorkin V. The rule of law and the security imperative // ​​Russian newspaper. 2012. N 5782. May 16.