The protection of human rights remains one of the major themes of political, philosophical and legal discourse. A substantial body of opinion holds that there are such things as human rights and that they ought to have legal protection. This view has, from time to time, received expression in the form of general declarations of the fundamental rights which persons are supposed to have. The historical, political and social contexts must, for reasons of prudence, play a large part in the decision, and there may be circumstances in which real protection of human rights requires us to accept the expanded judicial role and the consequences for democratically elected institutions which a bill of rights entails. Insofar as the objections are based on the view that Bills of Rights riase issues which are incapable of objective judicial resolution, they are misconceived. There is a widespread failure to appreciate that the existing differences in constitutional structure create not major differences in the problems of interpretation and of judicial method caused by enacting legal guarantees of human rights.
There are no reviews yet.