Introduction

When a country draws up its constitution it makes use of a few elements, which is not necessarily the Ten Commandments. However, the Ten commandments is seen as a very important source of the church, because this, one could argue that the constitution of the church. In this article, I will be looking at the role that the Ten Commandments have played during the draft of our Bill of Rights as well as how it has influenced the UN charter on Human rights. I will make use of the 7th Commandment  and bring it into dialogue with these two documents.

The Seventh Commandment

"You shall not steal"  (Exodus 20:15). What does this mean? Dr. Martin Luther in his Small Catechism explains it as follows: "We should fear and love God, and we so should we not rob our neighbour of his money or property,nor bring them into our possession by dishonest trade or by dealing in shoddy wares, but help him/her to improve and protect his income and property" (Tappert, 1959:343). This explanation says everything. It shows us certainly the key obligation that we as fellow citizens have for one another and that is to look out for others instead of ourselves.

Let us now turn our attention to the UN charter of human rights.

UN Charter of Human Rights

Article 3 of this charter reads as follows: "Everyone has the right to life and security of person"  (Harrelson, 1989:197). Nothing is scarier than the knowledge of not being safe in your own home, because of the fact that people are running our streets threatening our lives and by doing that, we are confined to our own homes. This for me is a sort of stealing, why, because human beings are social beings and we need one another for our spiritual well being and if we are confined into one area, which is our homes because we are to scared to put our feet outside our homes. Because of the fear that someone might break into our house, and steal all the valuable possessions that I have worked hard for over the years.

Article 1 states the following: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights"  (Harrelson,1989:196). During the years of Apartheid in South Africa, black people had to carry around a special passport, which confined them in their area only and if they needed to go somewhere else they needed special permission from the local authorities to go out of their area, which was sometimes for only a short period of time.This made it difficult for them to find employment especially if you have come from a very rural area, where there was very little job opportunities. In the world where their was war, people were restricted to their area only because like in the case of Rwanda, Tutsi and Hutus were only in a certain area and if one dared to move out of that area, one were killed immediately.   

Article 15 states the following: "1. Everyone has the right to a nationality. 2. No one shall be arbitrary deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality" (Harrelson,1989:198).Our nationality forms part of our identity and by saying that we ar5e aliens to a country in which we were borned in is the same as to deny our existence.As a result of that we do not know where we belong, therefore we are like people without an identity, meaning in the eyes of the oppressive regime we are as good as dead, because nobody acknowledge the fact that we are here. If we do not have an identity it also means that we cannot go anywhere in the world because we do not even have papers to go into a foreign country to start afresh. 

Article 27 states the following:"1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. 2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral  and material interests resulting from any scientific, literacy or artistic production of which he/she is the author" (Harrelson,1989:201).Culture is one of the key elements which people need to find their identity but also to be educated in that culture without being restricted, meaning that the moment you take away from people, you are actually forcing down a culture upon people, which they find difficult to relate to. If they are withhold from their own culture it simply means that they have no moral values or very little and as a result of that people start to rebel against it and in doing so they start to take lives of those who withheld them from this vital learning and growing experience. Taking away property, which enables them to live, also does this. We know that education begins at home, and if that is deprived from them then they are normally at a disadvantage from the beginning of their lives, thus instead of moving forward they are leaping backwards.

Let us now turn our attention to the South African context.

The South African Constitution vs the UN Charter of Human Rights 

The South African Constitution is world-renowned and is seen as one of the best constitutions in the world presently. One will especially see, if one compare the two documents, UN Charter of human rights and the South African Bill of rights one will find that they are very similar to one another.

The South African Bill of Rights--Chapter 2 of SA Constitution 

Health care, food water and social security 

People get sick all the time and there are people who need medicine and health care desperately. Medicine us expensive and one of the debates that is going on today is the debate on how medicine can be made affordable for all the people especially the poor. The question is therefore: Can one show anyone the door that seek medical assistance just because of the fact that they do not have money to pay for seeing a doctor or getting medicine? Does it mean that people have to die although all the necessary resources is there to help them?

 I think of all the HIV/AIDS patients who enter our hospitals daily in the hope that they get some sort of medicine that could heal them from AIDS. What I appreciate so much about our constitution is the fact that even the poor have access to all our resources. Denying them this basic right is the same as putting a gun against the head of a person and pulling the trigger, no it is even better the person die without you actually killing the person or people due to starvation, because of too high costs in the basic food sources like maize meal and bread or dying of dehydration or Clean just because people have no access to clean water.

We also need to ask ourselves whose resources these are? Is it the government's responsibility or is it ours? To answer this question it is ours, because all these resources are there as a result of God's grace because he provided it for us. He did not keep  it for himself but we are stewards of those things God has provided for us. Therefore, I am in 100% with our bill of rights section 27, subsection 1,2,3, which states the following: "1. Everyone has the right to have access to-- (a) health care services, including reproductive health care; (b) sufficient food and water; and (c) social security, including, if they are unable to support themselves and their dependents, appropriate social assistance.  2. The state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realization of each of these rights. 3. No one may be refused emergency medical treatment.

This also shows that the government has its responsibility to help the people to have a sustainable life and if that is not possible then the government is failing their task and it becomes the duty of those who elected them into power to remove them at the next elections. The state thus may not discriminate against anyone who did not vote nor supported them during the last national elections. We hear now and then of people whose water is cut off simply because they do not have the  money to pay for it. This could have been a classical example of how the government could have helped resolving the issue, instead of paying some of the money for these people they are wasting time negotiating and the ordinary citizen must suffer. Therefore, I would argue that it is of utmost importance that the government generate funds to help the needy for a specific time instead of wasting money on issues like being a peace keeping force in Africa or trying to bring peace in war stricken areas. The Government was voted in power to deal with our needs not the needs of Africa, because they must first get our own backyard sorted before they can sort out the backyards of others.

Property 

When we talk about property, we are talking of two different types of property. We get the fixed assets. Here we talk two different types of properties of which both can be stolen. The one sort of property that is the most common type of property is money. A lot of people loose all their property simply because they get involve in scams which costs them so dearly that they loose all their possessions especially with business. One get these type of quick getting  rich schemes, where people put a lot of money into hoping that they will make big profits, but after a while they realize that they have lost everything. The other sort of property which is commonly known is the losing of land,due to land invasions etc. the government therefore must ensure that people are kept safe by imposing legislations that will protect people's rights to possess a certain amount of their property., because it is very difficult to start afresh if one has lost everything and got nothing from which they can build upon. Thus I would argue that whatever the cause might be people need to be compensated for their losses.

Section 25.3 in SA bill of rights suggests the following manner in which this could be done in a case when someone have lost all their possessions due to certain circumstances: "The amount of the compensation and the time and manner of payment must be just and equitable, reflecting an equitable balance between the public interests and the interests of those affected, having regard to all relevant circumstances, including--(a) the current use of the property; (b) the history of the acquisition and use of the property (c) the market value of the property (d) the extent of direct state investment and subsidy in the acquisition and beneficial improvement  of the property and (e) the purpose of expropriation.  These are all issues that the government needs to look at, because people may cause the owner to fall deep into debt so that they could obtain the property cheaply to do with that property as they like.  

If people are desperate to get money in their hands they might sell all property for a lesser amount which cause great problems years down the line. I would argue that the government needs to intervene not just to take the property away, but also enable the individual to have a way to begin again from scratch. People have lost their property because of the "Apartheid Regime" and therefore the government needs to find a way to get the land back to the original owners, but if it is a case of a farm, the new owners needs to be trained before they get the land so that on the long run our economy will not be affected by that decision. The other problem where people's rights get easily violated is with the issue of tenures. A lot of people tenure for projects which needs to be done, but their application fails because of unfair distribution. We find that companies do get a tenure and when the project needs to be finished within a certain time frame, one could find that the money is finished and there is a lot of work, which still needs to be done, and as a result of that tax-payers money have been abused and someone got rich instead of doing the work properly.Therefore, subsection 5 of section 25 deals very well with this issue, not only in the case of land, but also in the whole tenure debacle. It is stated as follows: " The state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to foster conditions which enable citizens to gain access to land on an equitable manner".

Land has been stolen, but people have bought the land with good intentions and at the same time have also developed it over the years, therefore it would be unlawful just to take away land or give tenures to incapable companies on the basis of black economic empowerment. The other area where there is theft for individuals is when someone is employed and underpaid. This therefore is the right of the individual to open a case against the employer for not paying the amount due for the employee, because in my eyes underpayment is just like slavery, because the individual is forced to stay there because of the shortages in job opportunities.

Then lastly there is an idea that people wants to become rich in an instinct. In the hope of getting rich or have some more money to live better,people play their last R 2,50 hoping that they will win R200 000 or more. The National Lottery is stealing money on a daily basis claiming that the money is put back into the poorer communities, but is this really happening? I would argue it isn't because we only see once a week of a place who have benefited of the charity, but still I wonder how much money is put into these projects and where is all the rest going? The National Lottery is certainly not fully open with their books and people puts their trust in 6 numbers and if it does not happen that they win, they suffer because of the wrong choice they have made. 

Conclusion

People steal from one another all the time, everyday, day and night the only reason why they get away with it is simply because they are packaging it so nicely which draw people's attention. It is not just property, but although  we have legislation that protects human dignity it is not enforce the way it should. People all over the world are robbed of access to clean water and health care, people are robbed of education and job opportunities, because of people forcing them to do something against their choice. It is time that the church who is very silent on these issues starts to speak out, because we as a church knows this is happening, but I get the feeling that we condone these type of action.Perhaps we as the church have lost the meaning of what our calling is or what God's word really means, because if I look at our world today people are getting poorer and poorer and companies richer and richer.People's food is taken out of their mounth's and it is our responsibilty as the church to claim back the food and dignity of our people.

Bibliography

Harrelson, Walter (1989) "The Ten Commandments and Human Rights" :Fortress Press, Philadelphia

Tappert, Theodore (1959) "The Book of Concord": Fortress Press, Philadelphia

The South African Constitution: Bill of Rights Ch 2 6-24(1996)