A constitutional right can be a prerogative or a duty, a power or a restraint of power, recognized and established by a
sovereign state
A sovereign state or sovereign country, is a polity, political entity represented by one central government that has supreme legitimate authority over territory. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defin ...
or union of states. Constitutional
rights
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical th ...
may be expressly stipulated in a national
constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When these princip ...
, or they may be inferred from the language of a national constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, meaning that laws that contradict it are considered unconstitutional and invalid. Usually any constitution defines the structure, functions, powers, and limits of the national government and the individual freedoms, rights, and obligations which will be protected and enforced when needed by the national authorities. Nowadays, most countries have a written constitution comprising similar or distinct constitutional rights.
Other coded set of laws have existed before the first Constitutions were developed having some similar purpose and functions, like the United Kingdom's 1215
Magna Carta
(Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called (also ''Magna Charta''; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, Berkshire, Windsor, on 15 June 1215. ...
or the Virginia Bill of Rights of 1776.
Specific rights
Freedom of assembly
191 constitutions recognize the
freedom of assembly
Freedom of peaceful assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right or ability of people to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue, and defend their collective or shared id ...
.
It may be further qualified as the right to "peaceful" or "unarmed" assembly for "legal purposes".
Right to vote
The right to vote is mentioned in 143 national constitutions.
It may be additionally
secret
Secrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups who do not have the "need to know", perhaps while sharing it with other individuals. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret.
Secrecy is often controvers ...
, or
mandatory.
There may also be restrictions based on residency, age, or criminal conviction.
United States
Federal constitution
On September 17, 1787 the
United States Constitution was signed during the
Constitutional Convention (United States)
The Constitutional Convention took place in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. Although the convention was intended to revise the league of states and first system of government under the Articles of Confederation, the intention fr ...
which took place at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, now the
Independence Hall
Independence Hall is a historic civic building in Philadelphia, where both the United States Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were debated and adopted by America's Founding Fathers. The structure forms the center ...
.
On December 15, 1791 the Bill of Rights comprising the first 10 Amendments became part of the U.S. Constitution. Later on, other 17 Amendments were added. Thus, the U.S Constitution is summing a total of 27 Amendments and 7 Articles. During all this time, only one amendment overturned a previous one, more precisely the twenty-first Amendment ratified on December 5, 1933 repealed the
prohibition of alcohol
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...
established by the eighteenth Amendment on January 16, 1919.
The provisions providing for rights under the Bill of Rights were originally binding upon only the federal government. In time, most of these provisions became binding upon the states through
selective incorporation
In United States constitutional law, incorporation is the doctrine by which portions of the Bill of Rights have been made applicable to the states. When the Bill of Rights was ratified, the courts held that its protections extended only to the ...
into the
due process clause
In United States constitutional law, a Due Process Clause is found in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which prohibits arbitrary deprivation of "life, liberty, or property" by the government except as ...
of the
14th Amendment. When a provision is made binding on a state, a state can no longer restrict the rights guaranteed in that provision.
Examples of provisions made binding upon the states are the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution which was made "fully applicable" by being Incorporated with the 14th Amendment in 2010, see, McDonald vs. City of Chicago; the
6th Amendment's guarantee of a right to confrontation of witnesses, known as the
Confrontation Clause, and the various provisions of the
1st Amendment
The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws that regulate an establishment of religion, or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the ...
, guaranteeing the freedoms of speech, the press, government and assembly.
For example, the
Fifth Amendment protects the right to
grand jury
A grand jury is a jury—a group of citizens—empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a ...
proceedings in federal criminal cases. However, because this right was not selectively incorporated into the due process clause of the 14th amendment, it is not binding upon the states. Therefore, persons involved in state criminal proceedings as a defendant have no federal constitutional right to grand jury proceedings. Whether an individual has a right to a grand jury becomes a question of state law.
The content of each Article and Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is easy to predict since they start with a suggestive title. For example, the
First Amendment
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
guarantees the freedom of religion, speech, and the press along with the rights of assembly and petition, the Second Amendment the right to bear arms and so on. However, in order to be easier to distinguish, the legal professionals have divided the constitutional rights into two categories: process rights and
substantive rights
Substantive rights are basic human rights possessed by people in an ordered society and include rights granted by natural law as well as the substantive law. Substantive rights involve a right to the substance of being human (life, liberty, happin ...
. Whereas, the process rights refer to the powers and obligations of the government with respect to individuals, the substantive rights, more diverse than the process ones, incorporate the individual freedoms granted and protected by the national government.
State constitutions
Each of the United States has its own governing Constitution. The States Constitutions are usually longer and written in much more detail than the U.S. Constitution. For example, the
Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = " Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County
, LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham
, area_total_km2 = 135,7 ...
Constitution has more than 600 pages and the
New Jersey
New Jersey is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York (state), New York; on the ea ...
Constitution of 1947 is three times longer than the U.S. Constitution. The reason for this difference between the federal Constitution and the states Constitutions is what Justice Brennan called 'the new judicial federalism'.
[()] meaning that rights granted by the States Constitutions can be broader than those comprised by the federal Constitution but not narrowed.
State constitutions cannot reduce legal protections afforded by the federal charter, but they can provide additional protections. ''California v. Ramos'', 463 U.S. 992, 1014, 103 S.Ct. 3446, 77 l.Ed.2d 1171 (1983). Even where the text of a state constitution matches verbatim that of the federal constitution, the state document may be held to provide more to the citizen. State constitutional rights can also include those entirely unaddressed in the federal constitution, such as the right to adequate education or the right to affordable housing.
Other nations
Countries whose written constitutions include a
bill of rights
A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and pri ...
include
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...
and
Japan.
The United Kingdom, as it has an
uncodified constitution, does not have a constitutional bill of rights, although the
Human Rights Act 1998
The Human Rights Act 1998 (c. 42) is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which received royal assent on 9 November 1998, and came into force on 2 October 2000. Its aim was to incorporate into UK law the rights contained in the European Con ...
fulfills a similar role.
The
European Convention of Human Rights applies in those nations which are members of the
Council of Europe. Persons who have experienced Convention-infringing human rights violations on the territory of ECHR-signatory nations can appeal to the
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a ...
.
In
authoritarian
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic votin ...
regimes there are generally few or no guaranteed inalienable rights; alternatively, such rights may exist but be unobserved in practice (as was generally the case in the former
Francoist Spain
Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Sp ...
).
See also
*
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life ...
*
Constitutional law
Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as the basic rights of citizens and, in fed ...
*
Constitutionalism
Constitutionalism is "a compound of ideas, attitudes, and patterns of behavior elaborating the principle that the authority of government derives from and is limited by a body of fundamental law".
Political organizations are constitutional ...
*
Fundamental rights
Fundamental rights are a group of rights that have been recognized by a high degree of protection from encroachment. These rights are specifically identified in a constitution, or have been found under due process of law. The United Nations' Susta ...
*
Human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
*
Inalienable rights
*
Natural rights
Some philosophers distinguish two types of rights, natural rights and legal rights.
* Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government, and so are ''universal'', '' fundamental'' an ...
*
Rule of law
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Constitutional Right
Constitutional law
Rights