Practical and Theoretical Controversies of the Dichotomy of Rights and Liberties

• Author: Ana Alina Dumitrache-Ionescu
• Position: Senior Lecturer, PhD, 'Danubius' University of Galati, Romania
• Pages: 48-64

ACTA UNIVERSITATIS DANUBIUS Vol. 12, no. 1/2016

48

Practical and Theoretical Controversies of

the Dichotomy of Rights and Liberties

Ana Alina DUMITRACHE-IONESCU

1

Abstract: The main objective of this paper- work is to analyse the classification of human rights,

highlighting the controversial matters referring to the categories of rights from the first and second

generation. Prior Work This research’s arguments are sustained in the specialized literature

according to which a certain classification can engender only negative effects, ten ding to minimize

the importance of economic, social and cultural rights by their integration in an inferior category of

rights. The Approach used in this study is complex: survey, observation and case study. The Results

of this research reflect the interdependence of fundamental rights and liberties, irrespective of the

category in which they were included by the international community. Implications The results of

this research are of interest to law school students, teachers and researchers in the legal field. Value

The key contribution to this paper consists in a different approach in the issue of classification of

human rights and interdependence of fundamental rights and liberties.

Keywords: Human rights; liberties; interdependence of human rights

1. Rights and Liberties of Man. Concept and Features

The rights of man, the rights of the citizen, the rights and fundamental liberties are

concepts which must be subjected to a minute analysis so that the characteristics of

each of them are underlined.

In the meaning of the Universal Declaration of human rights, the rights of man

represent those rights which spring from the inherent dignity of the human being.

In the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted at 10th

December 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations, it is provided that

ignoring and disdaining of human rights led to acts of barbarism which stir up the

1

Senior Lecturer, PhD, “Danubius” University of Galati, Romania. Address: 3 Galati Boulevard,

800654 Galati, Romania. Tel.: +40.372.361.102, fax: +40.372.361.290. Corresponding author:

alinadumitrache@univ-danubius.ro.

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human consciousness. The acknowledgement of the inherent dignity of all

members of the human family and of their equal and inalienable rights constitutes

the foundation of liberty, justice and peace in the world.

The concept of human rights has been rendered in the course of history by means

of numerous interpretations and definitions. From a socio-political viewpoint, the

rights of human beings represent a concept attributed to human beings as principal

holders of universal rights.

The rights of the human being are those minimal rights from which an individual

must benefit from, rights opposable to the state as well as to other public

authorities only in the virtue of the fact that their holder is part of the human

family.

In the paper Human rights, the religion of the end of a century, professor Adrian

Năstase defined this concept in this manner: human rights are those prerogatives

conferred by the internal law and recognised by the international law to each

individual in his reports with the group and the state which give full expression to

some social fundamental values and which have as a purpose the satisfaction of

some basic human needs and of some legitimate aspirations in the social, political,

cultural and historic context of a certain society.

From an international perspective, by means of the rights of human beings there are

being evoked the rights of human beings endowed with reason and conscience to

whom are acknowledged his natural rights as inalienable and indefeasible rights.

1.1. The Rights of the Citizen

The existence of the human being in a society organised as a state is rendered

through three phases from a judicial point of view: a citizen, a foreigner or a

homeless. (Iancu, 2002, p. 3)

By integrating in a certain social and political system, the man becomes a citizen

and benefits in this quality of a series of rights regulated and guaranteed by means

of the fundamental law of the state whose citizen it is.

Thus the concept of human rights has a far wider interpretation compared to the

rights of the citizen, the first being valid universally and applicable to all human

beings whereas the rights of the citizen are applicable to some distinct categories:

human beings integrated in a certain group organised by the state function on the

basis of a framework of judicial, religious and moral rules etc. (Tomescu, 2014, p.

14)