What Happened? Who is Affected and Who is the cause?

STEP 1: WHAT HAPPENED?

In human rights as well as in law, finding out what “really” happened requires an analytical process.  A lot of human rights cases get thrown out of court or fail the judicial process (procedure) not because what happened was not a wrong, but because the case was not properly filed or described or named in its presentation. Let’s look at the example below:

Kofi (a teacher) intentionally throws an object (e.g. a five-inch cement block) at Kwame (a student) to cause harm to Kwame creating an apprehension in Kwame of an imminent harmful or offensive contact of the object (i.e. the five-inch block), this is a human right abuse of “threat to security of person”, and in law it is referred to as “an assault.”

Thus, “WHAT HAPPENED” in the above scenario is “a threat to safety and security of person”. At law, this is an “assault”. 

An assault is an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent fear of contact. An assault is carried out by a THREAT of BODILY HARM CAUPSED WITH AN APPARENT, PRESENT ABILITY TO CAUSE THE HARM.  In the above;

1.       Kofi acted intentionally by throwing the five-inch block at Kwame

2.       The five-inch block can cause harm

3.       Kofi’s “act” created an apprehension in Kwame of an imminent threat of bodily harm.

PLAINTIFF AND DEFENDANT IN COURT.

·         A plaintiff is a person who brings a case against another in a court of law.

·         A defendant is an individual, company, or institution sued or accused in a court of law

Therefore, should the above case be presented in court, Kwame would be the plaintiff while Kofi would appear as the defendant.

CASES OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AND ASSAULT

There are several cases of such human rights violations or abuses at law that we can cite to uphold or support this position on the issue.  For example, Blake vs Bernard, Asante vs The Republic, Osborne vs Veitch, Stephen vs Myers, Read vs Coker, among several others.

READ vs COKER (PLAINTIFF vs DEFENDANT)

In the case of READ vs COKER, the brief FACTS were that the plaintiff (Read) went to the defendant’s (Coker) workshop and was asked to leave but he refused. As a result, the defendant and some of his workmen surrounded the plaintiff, started pulling up their sleeves and aprons and threatened to break his neck if he did not leave.  The plaintiff, in fear that they would beat him if he did not leave, left and sued for assault.

The court HELD that the acts of the defendant constituted assault.

The PRINCIPLE applied by the court was that “assault lied where there is an intention to assault and also the ability to carry the threat into execution.”

As human rights activists and defenders, we need to clearly identify the “issue” at hand.  It is also very helpful to clearly name the issue at law.

Step 2:  WHO IS THE VICTIM?

Kwame is the victim or the affected person in our case. And law, and should the case go to court, Kwame will be the plaintiff.

STEP 3:  WHO CAUSED IT?

Kofi is the one who caused the assault. He is the perpetrator of the offence and, at law, he will be the defendant.