Equality before the law or equality under the law or legal egalitarianism is the principle under which each individual is subject to the same laws, with no individual or group having special legal privileges. Legal egalitarianism admits no class structures entail separate legal practices. Thus, canon law Canon law is internal ecclesiastical law governing the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of churches. The way that such church law is legislated, interpreted and at times adjudicated varies widely among these three bodies of churches. In all three traditions, a canon was initially a rule adopted by a, star chambers The Star Chamber was an English court of law that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster until 1641. It was made up of Privy Counsellors, as well as common-law judges, and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters. The court was set up to ensure the fair enforcement of laws against prominent, and aristocracy Aristocracy is a form of government, in which a select few such as the most wise, strong or contributing citizens rule, often starting as a system of cooption where a council of prominent citizens add leading soldiers, merchants, land owners, priests, or lawyers to their number. Aristocracy deforms when it becomes hereditary elite are alike forbidden, and the testimony of all persons is counted with the same weight. This political development arose in the 18th century in both the United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the and France France (pronounced /ˈfræns/ or /ˈfrɑːns/; French: [fʁɑ̃s]), officially the French Republic (French: République française, pronounced: [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the after their revolutionary periods. It was not immediately implemented in either place, with the United States retaining slavery and a distinction between naturalized and natural born citizens (still in place), and France descending into chaos and tyranny under Napoleon.
According to the eminent Austrian economist The Austrian School is a school of economic thought that emphasizes the spontaneous organizing power of the price mechanism. Austrians hold that the complexity of subjective human choices makes mathematical modelling of the evolving market extremely difficult (or undecideable) and advocate a laissez faire approach to the economy. Austrian School Friedrich Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek CH , was an influential economist and philosopher, and a major critic of John Maynard Keynes. Hayek's account of how changing prices communicate signals which enable individuals to coordinate their plans is widely regarded as an important achievement in economics. This and other contributions have put Hayek at the top, equality before the law and material equality are incompatible, arguing that material inequality is a natural consequence of legal equality: "From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time".[1] It also follows that, "Our argument will be that, though where the same must use coercion for other reasons, it should treat all people alike, the desire of making people more alike in their condition cannot be accepted in a free society as a justification for further and discriminatory coercion."
See also
- Isonomia Isonomia from the Greek ἴσος isos, "equal," and νόμος nomos, "usage, custom, law" is said to be the historical and philosophical foundation of liberty, justice, and democracy
- Rule of law The rule of law, also called supremacy of law, is a general legal maxim according to which decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws, without the intervention of discretion in their application. This maxim is intended to be a safeguard against arbitrary governance. The word "arbitrary" signifies a judgment made at the
- Liberal democracy Liberal democracy is the dominant form of democracies in the 21st century. During the Cold War, liberal democracies were contrasted with the Communist People's Republics or "Popular Democracies", which claimed an alternative conception of democracy. Today, constitutional democracies are mostly contrasted with direct democracy and/or
References
- ^ Friedrich Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek CH , was an influential economist and philosopher, and a major critic of John Maynard Keynes. Hayek's account of how changing prices communicate signals which enable individuals to coordinate their plans is widely regarded as an important achievement in economics. This and other contributions have put Hayek at the top, The Constitution of Liberty The Constitution of Liberty is a book written by Austrian economist and Nobel Prize recipient Friedrich A. Hayek. The book was first published in 1960 and it is an interpretation of civilization as being made possible by the fundamental principles of liberty, which the author presents as prerequisites for wealth and growth, rather than the other, p. 87
| Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (10 December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris). The Guinness Book of Records describes the UDHR as the "Most Translated Document" in the world. The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and |
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General principles |
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Article 1: Freedom Freedom is the right to act according to ones will without being held up by the power of others. From a philosphical point of view, it can be defined as the capacity to determine your own choices. It can be defined negatively as an absence of subordination, servitude and constraint, Egalitarianism Egalitarianism or Equalism is a political doctrine that holds that all people should be treated as equals and have the same political, economic, social, and civil rights. Generally it applies to being held equal under the law and society at large. In actual practice, one may be considered an egalitarian in most areas listed below, even if not, Dignity Dignity is a term used in moral, ethical, and political discussions to signify that a being has an innate right to respect and ethical treatment. It is an extension of Enlightenment-era beliefs that individuals have God-given, inviolable rights, and thus is closely related to concepts like virtue, respect, self-respect, autonomy, human rights, and and Brotherhood In most societies throughout the world, siblings usually grow up together and spend a good deal of their childhood with each other. This genetic and physical closeness may be marked by the development of strong emotional associations such as love or enmity. The sibling bond is often complicated and is influenced by factors such as parental
Article 2: Universality of rights Moral universalism is the meta-ethical position that some system of ethics, or a universal ethic, applies universally, that is, for "all similarly situated individuals", regardless of culture, race, sex, religion, nationality, sexuality, or other distinguishing feature. Moral universalism is opposed to moral nihilism and moral relativism
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International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is a United Nations treaty based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, created on 16 December 1966 and entered into force on 23 March 1976 |
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Article 1 and 2: Right to freedom from discrimination The right to freedom from discrimination is a internationally recognised human right and enshrines the principle of egalitarianism. The right to freedom from discrimination is recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and enshrined in international human rights law through its inclusion in the International Covenant on Civil and · Article 3: Right to life Right to life is a phrase that describes the belief that a human being has an essential right to live, particularly that a human being has the right not to be killed by another human being. The concept of a right to life is central to debates on the issues of capital punishment, euthanasia, self defense, abortion and war. The right to life is, liberty Liberty is a concept of political philosophy and identifies the condition in which an individual has the right to act according to his or her own will and security of person Security of person or security of the person is a human right guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948. It is also a right respected in the Constitution of Canada, the Constitution of South Africa and other laws around the world · Article 4: Freedom from slavery Slavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be, or treated as, the property of others. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation . Evidence of slavery predates written records, and has existed to · Article 5: Freedom from torture and cruel and unusual punishment Cruel and unusual punishment is a statement implying that governments shall not inflict such treatment for crimes, regardless of their degree of severity. It was founded in the English Bill of Rights, which was signed in 1689 by King William III and Queen Mary II who were then the joint rulers of England, Scotland, and Ireland following the ' · Article 6: Right to personhood The term person in common usage means an individual human being. In the fields of law, philosophy, medicine, and others, the term also has specialised context-specific meanings · Article 7: Equality before the law · Article 8: Right to effective remedy from the law A legal remedy is the means with which a court of law, usually in the exercise of civil law jurisdiction, enforces a right, imposes a penalty, or makes some other court order to impose its will. In Commonwealth common law jurisdictions and related jurisdictions (e.g. the United States), the law of remedies distinguishes between a legal remedy (e.g · Article 9: Freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention Arbitrarily arresting and detaining persons contradicts rule of law established in democracies as well as habeas corpus and is thereafter illegal in those regimes. It is often a characteristic of dictatorships or police states, which may also engage in forced disappearance and exile Exile means to be away from one's home while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened by prison or death upon return. It can be a form of punishment · Article 10: Right to a fair trial The right to fair trial is seen as an essential right in all countries respecting the rule of law. A trial in these countries that is deemed unfair will typically be restarted, or its verdict quashed · Article 11.1: Presumption of innocence The presumption of innocence – being considered innocent until proven guilty – is a legal right that the accused in criminal trials has in many modern countries. The burden of proof is thus on the prosecution, which has to collect and present enough compelling evidence to convince the trier of fact, who are restrained and ordered by law to · Article 11.2: Prohibition of retrospective law An ex post facto law or retroactive law, is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of acts committed or the legal status of facts and relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law. In reference to criminal law, it may criminalize actions that were legal when committed; or it may aggravate a crime by bringing it into · Article 12: Right to privacy Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively. The boundaries and content of what is considered private differ among cultures and individuals, but share basic common themes. Privacy is sometimes related to anonymity, the wish to remain unnoticed or · Article 13: Freedom of movement Freedom of movement, mobility rights or the right to travel is a human rights concept which is respected in the constitutions of numerous states. It asserts that a citizen of a state, in which that citizen is present, generally has the right to leave that state, travel wherever the citizen is welcome, and, with proper documentation, return to that · Article 14: Right of asylum Right of asylum is an ancient juridical notion, under which a person persecuted for political opinions or religious beliefs in his or her own country may be protected by another sovereign authority, a foreign country, or Church sanctuaries (as in medieval times). Political asylum should not be mistaken with modern refugee law, which rather deals · Article 15: Right to a nationality Nationality is the relationship between a person and their state of origin, culture, association, affiliation and/or loyalty. Nationality affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the state · Article 16: Right to marriage Marriage is a social, religious, spiritual, emotional and/or legal union of individuals that creates kinship. This union may also be called matrimony, while the ceremony that marks its beginning is usually called a wedding and the married status created is sometimes called wedlock and family Family denotes a group of people or animals affiliated by a consanguinity, affinity or co-residence. Although the concept of consanguinity originally referred to relations by "blood," anthropologists[who?] have argued that one must understand the idea of "blood" metaphorically, and that many societies understand 'family' life · Article 17: Right to property Property is any physical or virtual entity that is owned by an individual or jointly by a group of individuals. An owner of property has the right to consume, sell, rent, mortgage, transfer and exchange his or her property. Important widely-recognized types of property include real property , personal property (physical possessions belonging to an · Article 18: Freedom of thought Freedom of thought is the freedom of an individual to hold or consider a fact, viewpoint, or thought, independent of others' viewpoints. It is closely related to, yet distinct from, the concept of freedom of expression, conscience Conscience is an ability or a faculty that distinguishes whether one's actions are right or wrong. It leads to feelings of remorse when one does things that go against his/her moral values, and to feelings of rectitude or integrity when one's actions conform to our moral values. It is also the attitude which informs one's moral judgment before and religion In a country with a state religion, freedom of religion is generally considered to mean that the government permits religious practices of other sects besides the state religion, and does not persecute believers in other faiths · Article 19: Freedom of opinion and expression Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship or limitation. The synonymous term freedom of expression is sometimes used to denote not only freedom of verbal speech but any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression are closely · Article 20.1: Freedom of assembly Freedom of assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right to come together with other individuals and collectively express, promote, pursue and defend common interests. The right to freedom of association is recognized as a human right, a political freedom and a civil liberty · Article 20.2: Freedom of association Freedom of association is the individual right to come together with other individuals and collectively express, promote, pursue and defend common interests. The right to freedom of association has been included in a number of national constitutions and human rights instruments, including the US constitution and the European Convention on Human · Article 21.1: Right to participation Public participation is a political principle or practice, and may also recognised as a right . The terms public participation may be used interchangeably with the concept or practice of stakeholder engagement and/or popular participation in government · Article 21.2: Right of equal access to public office Public administration can be broadly described as the development, implementation and study of branches of government policy. The pursuit of the public good by enhancing civil society, ensuring a well-run, fair, and effective public service are some of the goals of the field · Article 21.3: Right to universal suffrage Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens (or subjects) as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and noncitizens. Although suffrage has two necessary components, the right to vote and opportunities to vote, the term universal suffrage is associated only with the right to vote and
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Context, limitations and duties |
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Article 28: Social order · Article 29.1: Social responsibility · Article 29.2: Limitations of human rights · Article 29.3: The supremacy of the purposes and principles of the United Nations
Article 30: Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
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| Category:Human rights · Human rights portal |
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- This entry is related to, but not included in the Political ideologies series or one of its sub-series. Other related articles can be found at the Politics Portal.
Categories: Political theories | Political science terms | Egalitarianism |
