Constitutional Right
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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 the ...
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 Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...
, 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, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the ...
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 ide ...
. 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 Mandate most often refers to: * League of Nations mandates, quasi-colonial territories established under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, 28 June 1919 * Mandate (politics) In representative democracies, a mandate (or seat) ...
. There may also be restrictions based on residency, age, or criminal conviction.


United States


Federal constitution

On September 17, 1787 the
United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven ar ...
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 f ...
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 of the United States, Founding Fa ...
. 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 be ...
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 into the due process clause 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 The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that ''"in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right…to be confronted with the witnesses against him."'' The right only applies to cri ...
, 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, th ...
, guaranteeing the freedoms of speech, the press, government and assembly. For example, the Fifth Amendment protects the right to grand jury 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. 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 (state song), Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...
Constitution has more than 600 pages and the
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
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, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
,
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 so ...
and
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
. The United Kingdom, as it has an
uncodified constitution An uncodified constitution is a type of constitution where the fundamental rules often take the form of custom (law), customs, usage, precedent and a variety of statutes and legal instruments.Johari, J. C. (2006) ''New Comparative Government'', ...
, does not have a constitutional bill of rights, although the Human Rights Act 1998 fulfills a similar role. The
European Convention of Human Rights The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by th ...
applies in those nations which are members of the
Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in 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 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, Spai ...
).


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 of ...
*
Constitutional law Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a State (polity), state, namely, the executive (government), executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as th ...
*
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 Morality, moral principles or Social norm, 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 ce ...
*
Inalienable 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 ...
* Natural rights *
Rule of law The rule of law is the political philosophy that all citizens and institutions within a country, state, or community are accountable to the same laws, including lawmakers and leaders. The rule of law is defined in the ''Encyclopedia Britannica ...


References

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