Unenumerated rights are

legal 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'' and ...

inferred from other rights that are implied by existing laws, such as in written

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 ...

s, but are not themselves expressly coded or "enumerated" within the explicit writ of the law. Alternative terminology sometimes used are: implied rights, natural rights, background rights, and fundamental rights."Committee on the Judiciary Tushnet Statement re Hearing on 'the Origin and Scope of Roe v. Wade'
.

United States House Committee on the Judiciary The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, also called the House Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is charged with overseeing the administration of justice within the federal courts, a ...

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...

(

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

April 22, 1996. Unenumerated rights may become enumerated rights if they necessitate the systematization of positively enumerated rights anywhere laws would become logically incoherent, or could not be adhered to otherwise. Examples of this include federal systems where constituent member constitutions have to be interpreted in relation to their membership in the federal whole, adjudicative of whether authority is rightfully

devolved Devolution is the statutory delegation of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to govern at a subnational level, such as a regional or local level. It is a form of administrative decentralization. Devolved territories h ...

or more rightly federative. This term may be used loosely to mean any

natural Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are p ...

or intrinsic rights (such as rights innate to each individual or inherent to mankind) that are without expression or instance of articulation.

In Australia

Implied rights are the political and civil freedoms that necessarily underlie the actual words of the

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 ...

but are not themselves expressly stated directly in the Constitution. Since the 1990s, the High Court has discovered rights which are said to be implied by the very structure and textual form of the Constitution. Chief amongst these is an implied right to freedom of communication on political matters, which was first recognised in ''

Nationwide News Pty Ltd v Wills ''Nationwide News Pty Ltd v Wills'' is a High Court of Australia case that deals with a number of issues regarding the Australian Constitution, including the Express right free interstate trade and commerce ( section 92), the implied freedom o ...

''. In addition, some protections of civil liberties have been the result of the High Court's zealous attempts to safeguard the independence of, and confidence in, the federal judiciary. A good example of this can be seen in ''

Kable v Director of Public Prosecutions (NSW) ''Kable v DPP'',. is a decision of the High Court of Australia. It is a significant case in Australian constitutional law. The case is notable for having established the 'Kable Doctrine', a precept in Australian law with relevance to numerous i ...

'', in which the High Court struck down a criminal law passed by the

New South Wales Parliament The Parliament of New South Wales is a bicameral legislature in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW), consisting of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly (lower house) and the New South Wales Legislative Council (upper house). Each ...

that was directed at a single, named individual in a similar manner to a

bill of attainder A bill of attainder (also known as an act of attainder or writ of attainder or bill of penalties) is an act of a legislature declaring a person, or a group of people, guilty of some crime, and punishing them, often without a trial. As with attai ...

. The High Court also inferred a limited right to vote from the text of the Constitution in ''

Roach v Electoral Commissioner ''Roach v Electoral Commissioner''Judgement summary
at ...

'', invalidating legislation that prevented all prisoners from voting.

In Ireland

Article 40.3 of the

Irish Constitution The Constitution of Ireland ( ga, Bunreacht na hÉireann, ) is the fundamental law of Ireland. It asserts the national sovereignty of the Irish people. The constitution, based on a system of representative democracy, is broadly within the traditio ...

refers to and accounts for the recognition of unenumerated rights. The

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

is often the main source of such rights, such as the right to bodily integrity, the right to marry and the right to earn a living, among others.

In Portugal

Article 16 (titled ''Scope and interpretation of fundamental rights'' and known as the "open clause of fundamental rights") of the

Portuguese Constitution The present Constitution of Portugal was adopted in 1976 after the Carnation Revolution. It was preceded by a number of constitutions including the first one created in 1822 (following the Liberal Revolution of 1820), 1826 (drawn up by King ...

explicitly refers to fundamental rights not enumerated in it, but in other legal sources, reading as follows: "1. The fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution shall not exclude any others set out in applicable international laws and legal rules. / 2. The constitutional and legal precepts concerning fundamental rights must be interpreted and completed in harmony with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Many fundamental rights are also commonly first pointed out by scholars and the

Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...

through the interpretation and breaking down of enumerated rights or general principles, namely the

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 ...

and

human dignity Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable ...

In the Republic of China

Article 22 of the

Constitution of the Republic of China The Constitution of the Republic of China is the fifth and current constitution of the Republic of China (ROC), ratified by the Kuomintang during the session on 25 December 1946, in Nanjing, and adopted on 25 December 1947. The constitution, ...

guarantees unenumerated freedoms and rights of the people that are not detrimental to

social order The term social order can be used in two senses: In the first sense, it refers to a particular system of social structures and institutions. Examples are the ancient, the feudal, and the capitalist social order. In the second sense, social order ...

or public welfare, now in effect in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

In the United States

In the United States, the Ninth Amendment to the

U.S. Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the natio ...

protects against federal infringement of unenumerated rights. The text reads:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

has also interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment to the

to protect against state infringement of certain unenumerated rights including, among others, the right to send one's children to private school and the right to marital privacy. The Supreme Court has found that unenumerated rights include such important rights as the right to travel, the

right to vote Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...

, and the right to keep personal matters private.

References