Civil liberties are guarantees and freedoms that governments commit not to abridge, either by constitution, legislation, or judicial interpretation, without due process. Though the scope of the term differs between countries, civil liberties may include the freedom of conscience, freedom of press, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, the right to security and liberty, freedom of speech, the right to privacy, the right to equal treatment under the law and due process, the right to a fair trial, and the right to life. Other civil liberties include the right to own property, the right to defend oneself, and the right to bodily integrity. Within the distinctions between civil liberties and other types of liberty, distinctions exist between positive liberty/positive rights and negative liberty/negative rights.
The Bill of Rights 1689 is an Act of the Parliament of England that set out certain basic civil rights and clarified who would be next to inherit the Crown. It remains a crucial statute in English constitutional law.
Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is part of the Constitution of Canada. It is commonly known as the notwithstanding clause, sometimes referred to as the override power, and it allows Parliament or provincial legislatures to temporarily override sections 2 and 7–15 of the Charter.
A popular initiative is a form of direct democracy by which a petition meeting certain hurdles can force a legal procedure on a proposition. The hurdles the petition has to meet vary between countries, typically signatures by a certain number of registered voters.
A constitutional amendment is a modification of the constitution of a polity, organization or other type of entity. Amendments are often interwoven into the relevant sections of an existing constitution, directly altering the text. Conversely, they can be appended to the constitution as supplemental additions, thus changing the frame of government without altering the existing text of the document.
Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase in common law describing punishment that is considered unacceptable due to the suffering, pain, or humiliation it inflicts on the person subjected to the sanction. The precise definition varies by jurisdiction, but typically includes punishments that are arbitrary, unnecessary, or overly severe compared to the crime.
The Constitution of the Czech Republic is the supreme law of the Czech Republic. The current constitution was adopted by the Czech National Council on 16 December 1992. It entered into force on 1 January 1993, replacing the 1960 Constitution of Czechoslovakia and the constitutional act No. 143/1968 Col., when Czechoslovakia gave way to the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic in a peaceful dissolution.
The Constitution of the State of Hawaii, also known as the Hawaii State Constitution, is the fundamental governing document of the U.S. state of Hawaiʻi. As an organic text, it establishes the principles and framework of government, enumerates the rights and freedoms of Hawaiian citizens, and serves as the supreme law of the state.
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 actions of the federal government and that the Bill of Rights did not place limitations on the authority of the state and local governments. However, the post–Civil War era, beginning in 1865 with the Thirteenth Amendment, which declared the abolition of slavery, gave rise to the incorporation of other amendments, applying more rights to the states and people over time. Gradually, various portions of the Bill of Rights have been held to be applicable to state and local governments by incorporation via the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of 1868.
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' Sustainable Development Goal 16, established in 2015, underscores the link between promoting human rights and sustaining peace.
A constitutional right can be a prerogative or a duty, a power or a restraint of power, recognized and established by a sovereign state or union of states. Constitutional rights may be expressly stipulated in a national constitution, 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.
The Right to Information (RTI) is an act of the Parliament of India which sets out the rules and procedures regarding citizens' right to information. It replaced the former Freedom of Information Act, 2002. Under the provisions of RTI Act, any citizen of India may request information from a "public authority" which is required to reply expeditiously or within thirty days. In case of matter involving a petitioner's life and liberty, the information has to be provided within 48 hours. The Act also requires every public authority to computerize their records for wide dissemination and to proactively publish certain categories of information so that the citizens need minimum recourse to request for information formally.
In the United States, the right to petition is enumerated in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which specifically prohibits Congress from abridging "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances".
The United States Bill of Rights comprises the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. Proposed following the often bitter 1787–88 debate over the ratification of the Constitution and written to address the objections raised by Anti-Federalists, the Bill of Rights amendments add to the Constitution specific guarantees of personal freedoms and rights, clear limitations on the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and explicit declarations that all powers not specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution are reserved to the states or the people. The concepts codified in these amendments are built upon those in earlier documents, especially the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), as well as the Northwest Ordinance (1787), the English Bill of Rights (1689), and Magna Carta (1215).
Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that held, "Unless restrained by their own constitutions, state legislatures may enact statutes to control and regulate all organizations, drilling, and parading of military bodies and associations except those which are authorized by the militia laws of the United States." It states that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution limited only the power of Congress and the national government to control firearms, not that of the states, and that the right to peaceably assemble in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution was not protected by the clause referred to except to petition the government for a redress of grievances. This decision was overruled in McDonald v. City of Chicago in (2010).
Human rights in Canada have come under increasing public attention and legal protection since World War II. Prior to that time, there were few legal protections for human rights. The protections which did exist focused on specific issues, rather than taking a general approach to human rights.
Petitioning is the administrative system for hearing complaints and grievances from individuals in the People's Republic of China. It is a common tool for dispute resolution in the country.
Black jails are a network of extralegal detention centers established by Chinese security forces and private security companies across the People's Republic of China. They are used mainly to detain, without trial, petitioners, who travel to seek redress for grievances unresolved at the local level. The right to petition was available in ancient China, and was later revived by the communists, with important differences.
McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that found that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms", as protected under the Second Amendment, is incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment and is thereby enforceable against the states. The decision cleared up the uncertainty left in the wake of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) as to the scope of gun rights in regard to the states.
The National Public Complaints and Proposals Administration is a deputy-cabinet level agency directly under the State Council of China. It is the national ombudsman office of the People's Republic of China.
