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Human Rights: Rules and Theory

Rights, liberties and the correlative duty

  • 3 things to know
  • Components 2 and 3

Overview

Civil liberty, traditional distinction between a right and a liberty and difference between a liberty and a right in practice.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

What is a civil liberty?

Key term

Explain the traditional distinction between a right and a liberty.

Key term

Why is a liberty described as residual?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What is a civil liberty?

    Model answer

    A civil liberty is an area of conduct the law leaves free from state interference. A civil liberty exists wherever no rule forbids the activity in question.

  2. 2

    Explain the traditional distinction between a right and a liberty.

    Model answer

    A right imposes a positive duty on another party to respect or provide something. A liberty merely means the law does not prohibit the conduct, so nobody owes a matching duty.

  3. 3

    Why is a liberty described as residual?

    Model answer

    A residual liberty is what is left over once every legal prohibition is subtracted. A citizen may do anything the law has not forbidden, however trivial or unpopular.

  4. 4

    Give an example of the difference between a liberty and a right in practice.

    Model answer

    A liberty to walk in the street disappears the moment Parliament creates an offence covering it. A right to liberty under the Convention survives such a change unless the interference is justified.

  5. 5

    Which constitutional writer built the protection of freedom on ordinary law rather than a written charter?

    Model answer

    A. V. Dicey argued that English freedoms grew out of ordinary common law remedies. Dicey treated a declaration of rights as weaker protection than an enforceable court action.

  6. 6

    State one advantage of the liberties approach to freedom.

    Model answer

    The liberties approach needs no list, so freedom is not confined to the items someone thought to write down. Any new activity is lawful until Parliament decides otherwise.

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Parliamentary and European Law Making
Delegated Legislation
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The court sits in .
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A Public Bill changes the general law.
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