Category: Principle Of Rights

Legal theory of right is based on the concept positive law, law enacted by sovereign authority. Rights are created and enforced by law; they are an artificial creation of the State. However, it is argued that if law is the sole creator of rights, then it should also be able to ‘make corruption a right’… Continue reading Critical evaluation

Theory of legal rights has been mainly associated with Thomas Hobbes, Jeremy Bentham and John Austin. Hobbes started with the conception of natural rights as provided in the state of nature and came to the conclusion that a central authority in the commonwealth, the sovereign or the Leviathan, must protect the most fundamental natural right, right… Continue reading Exponents of legal rights

A common practice that prevails in providing legal rights is through a charter or bill or rights. Constitutions of all countries that provide rights to its citizens do that through Charter or Bill of Rights. The Constitution of France, USA and India (Fundamental Rights) for example, provide declarations of rights of the citizens and individuals… Continue reading Bill of rights versus common law

Theory of legal rights presents a legalist or law-based position on origin, claim and nature of rights. It traces origin or source of rights in the form of enacted laws that have legal or positive authority behind them. Heywood defines legal rights as ‘rights which are enshrined in law and are therefore enforceable through the… Continue reading Theory of Legal Rights

The theory of natural rights presents claims for rights based on the grounds, which are prior to recognition by the State or civil society. These rights are treated as eternal, permanent, inherent, inalienable, imprescriptible and immutable. However, it has been argued that the natural right to property has been historically unavailable and is relevant in… Continue reading Critical evaluation

Thomas Paine and T. H. Green have sought to justify claim of prior rights of the individual, i.e., rights independent of recognition of society and the state, based on teleological grounds. This means individuals have inherent moral rights based on dignity, need for self-development and self-realization as human beings. Paine wrote the celebrated book The Rights of Man (1791),… Continue reading Teleological ground of natural rights: Paine and Green

Hobbes is the earliest advocate of natural rights on the contractual ground. Macpherson regards Hobbes a theorist of natural rights because he makes political obligations dependent on his postulates of individual natural rights. For Hobbes, the state of nature is one of natural rights without any control. By portraying a state of complete or licentious… Continue reading Contractual ground of natural rights: Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau

Natural rights are one of the earliest grounds for claim of individual rights. Natural rights are natural claims because they are gifts of nature, product of law of nature and do not depend upon any authority or sovereign power for recognition, prescription and enforcement. Two grounds, contractual and teleological, have been identified to support the theory of natural rights.… Continue reading Theory of Natural Rights

The concept of rights is said to have originated in the medieval period and, as Isaiah Berlin has mentioned, the notion of individual rights was absent from the legal conception of Greeks and Romans.27 Andrew Vincent corroborates this position and says that the notion of rights is comparatively recent. The concept of jus as ‘right’ in Roman Law… Continue reading Theories of Rights

We have discussed the concepts of positive rights (legal rights), negative rights, residual rights and fundamental rights and also rights, which are available in terms of Bill of Rights or Fundamental Rights in the Constitution. There could be various other dimensions, such as civil, economic, human, legal, moral, natural, political, social and cultural, which require… Continue reading Dimensions or Kinds of Rights