Right to integrity

[Jonathan Buhacoff]

The proposed right:

No person shall be forced, coerced, assaulted, threatened with violence, required, or compelled to violate the law. No person shall be liable for conduct that is required by law. No government shall enforce a law that conflicts with a law enacted by a higher level of government.

Intent:

The right to integrity refers to the state of being whole or undivided with respect to which laws to follow, and to the state of being able to live in compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, and policies.

The intent of the first sentence “No person shall be forced … or compelled to violate the law” is that no government or organization or person shall compel a person to violate the law against their will. Such attempts are violations of this right and create immediate liability for the assailant. This right does not preclude or prohibit a person from consenting to an agreement to violate the law, but that agreement would not be enforceable in court (see right to consent and right to justice).

The intent of the second sentence “No person shall be liable for conduct that is required by law” is that a person should be able to follow all applicable laws, regulations, and policies for their situation without conflicts. The intent is that if the law (or any lawful regulations or policies) obligates a person to act, or prohibits a person from acting, then that person cannot be prosecuted nor held liable for this. Any charges of misconduct must be leveled at either the person’s employer (in case of an issue with policy) or at the government (in case of an issue with laws or regulations enacted by that government).

The intent of the third sentence “No government shall enforce a law that conflicts with a law enacted by a higher level of government” is to prevent situations where a person might have liability due to conflicting obligations or prohibitions between laws enacted by different levels of government. If a government enacts a law that conflicts with an existing law of the same or higher level of government, and creates a situation where a person might have criminal liability for following the old law or the new law, with no way to follow both laws, that is a violation of the person’s right to integrity. Similarly, if a higher level of government enacts a law that conflicts with existing law in a lower level of government, the lower level must cancel or amend its existing law so it is no longer in conflict with the new law enacted by the higher level of government. Failure to do so creates a conflict, and the right to integrity resolves that conflict by prohibiting a government from enforcing a law that is in conflict with a higher level of government. To enforce such a conflicting law would violate a person’s right to integrity. See also hierarchical government.

Discussion:

The first part of the right is that no government may compel a person to violate the law. For example, if there is a law that says people must follow directions given by law enforcement officer, and a law enforcement officer directs one person to harm another person, damage property, steal something, etc. then the person’s right to integrity is violated because the person can be charged with a crime either way — if they follow the direction they are violating one law, and if they don’t follow the direction they are violating another law. In this situation, it is the law enforcement officer who violated the person’s rights, and the legislature wouldn’t necessarily need to change either law because officers should not have been directing people to violate the law. Since law enforcement is intended to protect people’s rights and not violate them, there is an obvious remedy of separating that officer from the law enforcement agency in addition to possible damages owed directly by that officer to the victim.

The release from liability for following the law is intended to prevent a lower level of government from prosecuting and to prevent private individuals from winning a lawsuit against a person who was fulfilling obligations created by a higher level of government. For example, if a person is imprisoned as part of a sentence, the guards at the prison cannot be prosecuted for wrongful imprisonment because they have an obligation due to the law and their government employment to imprison that person. They could be sued for doing things that violate the prisoner’s rights (because the law cannot compel anyone to violate rights) or any other misconduct that is outside of their obligations. Importantly, this also applies to private individuals who are not government officials or government employees, if they are fulfilling their obligations under the law. For example, if a person who is a “mandated reporter” reports to the government allegations of abuse, they cannot be sued for breaching client privacy because the reporting is required by law.

The prohibition against prosecution of someone for violating a subordinate law or regulation that contradicts a higher level law of regulation is a built-in enforcement mechanism for this right —
If government (including a corporate policy) at any of these levels declares that some behavior is prohibited and in doing so contradicts a law or regulation by a higher level of government that specifically indicates something is required or explicitly allowed, that creates a conflict that violates this right. In contrast, it’s perfectly fine for a government (including a corporate policy) to restrict behavior or create obligations in ways that are not in conflict with requirements or explicit freedoms or rights granted by higher levels of government.

For example, let’s say there is a federal law that requires all landlords to check the residency status of their rental applicants, and a state enacts a state law that prohibits landlords from checking the residency status of their rental applicants. That creates a situation where a landlord either asks for documents in compliance with federal law and violates state law, or doesn’t ask for documents in compliance with state law and violates federal law. The landlord’s only way to not violate either law is to not take any new rental applications, which means the landlord will eventually go out of business. Since driving landlords out of business is not the stated intent of either law, we assume that a landlord should be able to continue doing business but now that’s impossible to do without violating one law or the other, so the landlord’s right to integrity has been violated.

If the right to integrity has been violated because of conflicting laws between two different levels of government, it’s appropriate to sue the lower level of government because it must ensure its laws are aligned with all higher levels of government If the right to integrity has been violated because of conflicting laws enacted by the same level of government, it’s appropriate to sue that level of government. Because this is a right, anyone may sue to protect a person’s right to integrity and there does not need to be any special standing.

If the lawsuit to resolve conflicting laws happens before any damages occurred, an appropriate remedy would be to strike down the conflicting law or require the legislature to cancel one of the laws or amend one or both laws to resolve the conflict within a specified time span and suspend enforcement of the law during that time.

If the lawsuit to resolve conflicting laws happens after someone has been charged, arrested, indicted, tried, convicted, or even acquitted, that person has suffered damages due to violation of rights and should be compensated in addition to the government fixing the problem as described earlier.

If anyone sues to protect someone else’s rights, obviously it’s the victim who gets paid any damages and the plaintiff can only recover legal fees.

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