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Human Rights: Rules and Theory

The meaning of rights and the distinction between rights and liberties

  • 3 things to know
  • A2 Units 3 and 4

Overview

Legal right, civil liberty and central difference between a right and a liberty.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

What is a legal right?

Key term

What is a civil liberty?

Key term

What is the central difference between a right and a liberty?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What is a legal right?

    Model answer

    A legal right is an entitlement recognised by law and enforceable in court, which imposes a matching duty on someone else to respect it.

  2. 2

    What is a civil liberty?

    Model answer

    A civil liberty is a freedom to act that exists simply because the law has not forbidden the conduct, rather than because the law has positively conferred it.

  3. 3

    What is the central difference between a right and a liberty?

    Model answer

    A right is positively conferred and gives the holder a remedy when it is infringed, whereas a liberty is residual and shrinks whenever Parliament legislates to restrict the conduct.

  4. 4

    Before the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force, how were freedoms protected in domestic law?

    Model answer

    They were protected residually, so a person could do anything the common law or a statute had not prohibited, and there was no positive domestic statement of rights to argue from.

  5. 5

    What is meant by describing human rights as universal?

    Model answer

    Universality means the entitlements belong to every person by virtue of being human, whatever their nationality, status, wealth or conduct.

  6. 6

    What does it mean to say that a right is inalienable?

    Model answer

    An inalienable right cannot be sold, given away or forfeited, so a person retains it even if they purport to surrender it.

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