Critical Context of Law

Assignment 1
4. The main characters in the ‘critical contexts’ story are fairly libertarian in action, if not actual behaviour or politics? What therefore is the difference between a ‘civil liberty’ and a human right?

In fact, the main characters in the “critical contexts” are fairly libertarian in their action and they are not bound to certain limitations and they attempt to exercise their rights and liberties. At this point, it is worth mentioning the fact that Mandox believes he has almost unlimited rights, although such a view on his rights are apparently erroneous but still this position reveals the full extent to which Mandox is libertarian. At this point, it is worth mentioning the fact that the development of the libertarian views imply the high level of human rights and liberties, which though imply little obligations of individuals. However, it is virtually impossible to exercise human rights and liberties without having any obligations. In this regard, it is possible to refer to the concept of the social contract and theorists who developed this concept, such as John Locke, Jean Jacque Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, and others. In fact, the concept of the social contract implies the existence of close relationships between human natural rights and liberties, on the one hand, and agreement between people, on the other. In fact, this agreement imposes certain limitations and boundaries on the libertarianism of individuals, including the main characters of the “critical contexts”.
At the same time, it is important to understand that civil liberties and human rights is not a distinct area of law – legally enforceable rights and responsibilities underpin the legal system. The Human Rights Act came into force on 2 October 2000, giving effect to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in UK law. Convention rights affect ordinary people – in every area of public and private rights (Miller, 1994).
At this point, it is important to distinguish human rights and civil liberties. At first glance, both human rights and civil liberties imply the existence of certain rights, which individuals can exercise. In fact, human rights are normally defined as rights and freedoms to which all individuals are entitles. In this respect, it is possible to refer to existing legislation which clearly defines the scope of existing human rights. To put it more precisely, the Human Rights Act affects relations not only between individuals and public authorities but also between individuals themselves. It impinges not only upon the behaviour of public authorities, the courts and tribunals, but also upon disputes regarding contract, commercial and insurance matters, personal injury, family, welfare, education, disability, mental health, immigration, property, employment, defamation, privacy, tax, housing, planning and the environment and criminal law and more (Norton 1999).

At the same time, people cannot live up with their natural rights solely and so cannot the main characters of the “critical contexts”. In this respect, it is possible to refer to one of the founders of the theory of Social Contract, John Locke, according to which people can have natural rights but they cannot be unlimited:
they are left with the liberty of the state of nature, which they had all along. When any number of men have in this way consented to make one community or government, that immediately incorporates them, turns them into a single body politic in which the majority have a right to act on behalf of the rest and to bind them by its decisions (Locke, 2000, p. 32).
At the same time, people cannot rebel against the society because they are always constrained by the society. John Locke argued that people should look for a sort of compromise between their strife for liberties and rights, on the one hand, and liberties and rights of other people, on the other. Locke argued that people always tend to oppress others’ rights and liberties to expand their owns:
Though in the state of nature he has an unrestricted right to his possessions, he is far from assured that he will be able to get the use of them, because they are constantly exposed to invasion by others (Locke, 2000, p. 40).
Nevertheless, Locke developed the idea that it is due to the social contract people can live in peace and the social life is balanced because they live according to the common rules and principles:
if someone has once by actual agreement and an explicit declaration given his consent to belonging to some commonwealth, he is perpetually and irrevocably obliged to continue as its subject; he can never be again in the liberty of the state of nature—unless through some calamity the government in question •comes to be dissolved, or by some public act cuts him off from being any longer a member of that commonwealth (Locke, 2000, p. 39).
In this regard, it is worth mentioning the fact that liberties are rights and freedoms that provide individuals with specific rights, such as the right to life, education, and others. In such a way, civil liberties are specified human rights. Therefore, civil liberties limit the scope of human rights and narrow them down from the general concept of human rights as natural rights of individuals to specific rights. In such a way, civil liberties are the manifestation of the social contract concept, which bounds the libertarian approach the main characters of the “critical contexts” are inclined to.