Talk:Fundamental rights

Splitting this article
I see fundamental rights as two separate issues. First, you have the US Constitutional law legal principle of fundamental rights (which may also be relevant to other countries), which is what most of the current article is about. Second, you have the philosophical idea of fundamental rights (Dworkin, ect...). These two subjects are quite different, and taking any single approach to this page while trying to address both will be difficult. Any philosophy people that can weigh in on this? Pckilgore (talk) 15:27, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

The right to life after viability
Casey v. Planned Parenthood does not extend a fundamental right to life after viability. It affords individual states the opportunity to recognize a right to life after viability. The Supreme Court has determined there is a fundamental right to bodily autonomy prior to viability such that the State cannot impose significant burdens upon the woman's ability to acquire an abortion. There is no right to life enjoyed by the fetus prior to birth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.76.64.93 (talk) 19:25, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Self-representation as fundamental right
The right of self-representation is not listed on this page as being a fundamental right.

The American Judicature Society wrote: "Access to the courts is a long-standing right whose roots extend to several constitutional sources. Several of the earliest pronouncements of the right point to its origin in the privileges and immunities clause (Const. Art 4 Section 2). For example, in Corfield v. Coryell,(6 F. Cas 546, 551-552, No. 3, 230 (1823), the Supreme Court held:

"The inquiry is, What are the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states? We feel no hesitation in confining these expressions to those privileges and immunities, which belong, of right, to the citizens of all free governments, and which have, at all times, been enjoyed by the citizens of hte several states which compose this Union, from the time of their becoming free, independent, and sovereign. What these fundamental principals are it would, perhaps, be more tedious than difficult to enumerate...[but include the right] to institute and maintain actions of any kind in the courts of the state."

The Supreme Court also uses the term "fundamental" here:

"This Court's past recognition of the right of self-representation, the federal-court authority holding the right to be of constitutional dimension, and the state constitutions pointing to the right's fundamental nature form a consensus not easily ignored" Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1975)

The Supreme Court describes the right as a constitutional right:

"The right to sue and defend in the courts is the alternative of force. In an organized society it is the right conservative of all other rights and lies at the foundation of an orderly government. It is one of the highest and most essential privileges of citizenship, and must be allowed by each state to the citizens of all other states to the precise extent that it is allowed to its own citizens. Equality of treatment in this respect is not left to depend upon comity between the states, but is granted and protected by the Federal Constitution". Chambers v. Baltimore & Ohio Ry.Co, (207 U.S. 142, 28 S. Ct. 34,34 (1907)

These decisions were cited by the AJS in "Meeting the Challenge of Pro Se Litigation, A Report and Guidebook for Judges and Court Managers by Jona Goldschmidt, Barry Mahoney, Harvey Solomon, Joan Green, American Judicature Society"

More recently, the Supreme Court stated:

“there is no question that a party may represent his or her own interests in federal court without the aid of counsel. See 28 U. S. C. §1654 ("In all courts of the United States the parties may plead and conduct their own cases personally or by counsel)” WINKELMAN V. PARMA CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT, 127 S. Ct. 1994 (U.S. 05/21/2007)

The Old Testament states:

2 Sam 15:4 Absalom said moreover, Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice! 24.183.52.130 (talk) 17:26, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

"Constitution v Ethics There is little disagreement that individuals have a right, rooted in the U.S. Constitution, to represent themselves in a court of law. The exact source of that right has been debated and at various times attributed to the privileges and immunities clause of the Constitution, the First Amendment Right to petition the government for redress of grievances, the equal protection clause, and the due process clauses of the 5th and 14th Amendments requiring a meaningful hearing. The Supreme Court, on many occasions, has found self-representation to be a constitutional right. It is, therefore, a long-held belief that the courthouse door should be open to everyone. The practical application, however, is not clear. Exactly how far must courts and judges and lawyers go to assure that access is truly equal? The problems with that issue lie in the ethical dilemnas faced by those charged with carrying out this mandate." Source: Patricia A. Garcia for the American Bar Association "Litigants Without Lawyers. Courts and Lawyers Meeting the Challenges of Self-Representation." 2002, p. 11. ISBN 1-59031-061-6 kay sieverding (talk) 19:09, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * For reference, there has been some controversy at Pro se legal representation in the United States over inclusion of extensive amounts of material from Kay, and other matters. Interested editors of this article may want to determine whether what Kay just added constitutes undue weight or not. She was arguing there that self representation was a fundamental right. ++Lar: t/c 15:12, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Remove reference to the European Union. Merge article with other long standing articles on the topic
The reference to the European Union should be removed.

The EU is NOT a state and as yet does not even have a constitution! Its just a collection of bodies established and funded by numerous international treaties.

The Charter on fundamental rights is in the Rome treaty of 2004 but the Rome Treaty has not come into force because the people of France, the Netherlands and Ireland have all rejected it. It is now 5 years later and there is little sign that the treaty will be signed in its current form.http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/unit/charte/en/about-status.html

Even if the Rome Treaty was ratified the extent of only applies to the setting of Community Law and the activities of Community institutions. None of the provisions give any new rights that did not exist before.http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/unit/charte/en/faqs.html#2

The article content should be merged with Constitution of the United States or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I see no reason for it otherwise.--Hauskalainen (talk) 20:55, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I have reverted the "merge" for the following reasons: (1) a redirect without carrying over any of the data is not a merge. (2) Numerous articles that link to content inside "Fundamental right" were being redirected to Universal Declaration of Human Rights, when they have absolutely nothing to do with the UDHR (most of those are discussing the very points of U.S. Constitutional Law which User:Buridan described as WP:OR on Talk:Universal Declaration of Human Rights). (3) Numerous other articles having nothing to do with neither the U.S. Constitution nor with the UDHR also link to "Fundamental right," usually in discussion of legal or constitutional issues in non-European nations. (4) Despite all that, I agree that the article needs work; and it won't get the necessary work by using a merge request ignored for three days as an end run for AfD. --KGF0 ( T | C ) 21:36, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (5) Note also that on this very talk page two separate projects both tag this article as being of "high importance," so clearly someone does see the reason for it. --KGF0 ( T | C ) 21:44, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Now I see the Human right article I thinks that might have been the better place for a redirect. I am not sure what the difference is between a "Human right" and a "Fundamental right". All I will say is (a) that there is a lot of overlap in the topic subject and (b) this article is very U.S. centric in places. If there is no effort made to get agreement as to the direction this article should take (to set a clear distinction between this and other articles) and then take that plan forward with active editing towards that end we should refirect the article, otherwise it could be more misleading than informing (the other articles clearly have more content). We could place a comment request on the project pages seeking their views. --Hauskalainen (talk) 13:25, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
 * or we could just do an afd on fundamental right if it pops up again without significant improvement that do not significantly overlap human rights. at least that will be my plan of action.  the old article on fundamental rights is not a quality article as it stands and while as a basically contentless series of links isn't that bad, it would have to be much better to not be merged.--Buridan (talk) 14:13, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Project pages notified of redirect
I have given notice at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Law and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Philosophy of the ongoing dispute over the existence and content of this article, in the hopes of drawing knowledgeable and interested editors to resolve the known problems with previous editions without resorting to a loss of content as occurs in the case of a bare redirect (as opposed to a proper WP:SMERGE) to an article only tangentially related. Unfortunately, while I am cognizant of the difference between Fundamental and Human rights, I do not sufficient expertise in either subject to resolve the content issues that led to the merge proposal and subsequent redirect myself.

has suggested at Talk:Universal Declaration of Human Rights that, "If the article is really about the US constitution reference to Fundamental rights then the article should be re-edited to remove anything outside that subject area and then renamed Fundamental Rights (United States constitution)." Given that, as I noted on the same page, "Numerous other articles having nothing to do with neither the U.S. Constitution nor with the UDHR also link to "Fundamental right," usually in discussion of legal or constitutional issues in non-European nations," I believe that the article should instead, insofar as possible, address the general issue of fundamental rights as a legal concept, with sections on and/or links out to specific jurisdictional articles as appropriate and available, such as Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Fundamental Rights in India, as well as covering the U.S. Constitutional law perspective.

In either case, over 50 pages that link to Fundamental right are now being redirected to Human rights, and in most cases that article does not contain the information that makes the link meaningful. Thus, significant cleanup (usually the responsibility of the one performing the redirect) remains to be done regardless of the fate of this article. --KGF0 ( T | C ) 22:10, 27 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Then we should add something to Human right which does explain the difference! I still do not see how "fundamental rights" differs from "human rights". If there is a difference, it can only be a relatively minor difference. That difference could be explained at Human right and this article should redirect there. I am open to persuasion if you can convice me that there is a really significant difference between the two. --Hauskalainen (talk) 11:39, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * "Fundamental rights" are kinds of human rights. Still, it's a distinct concept - it's a legal term of art? Not all human rights are fundamental rights in all political systems, and not all fundamental rights are human rights in all political systems. Non Curat Lex (talk) 08:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Please explain more with WP:RS references to back up what you say. It seems pretty indistinct to me.--Hauskalainen (talk) 19:28, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Please find some RS that the two are interchangeable. Non Curat Lex (talk) 01:10, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Very funny. If as you say, Fundamental Rights are distinct from Human Rights, you have to be able to say how they are distinct. And how you know they are distinct. I have no intention of chasing windmills on THIS one!--Hauskalainen (talk) 03:48, 4 March 2009 (UTC)


 * But that is exactly what you are doing? Why must I do extraordinary research to justify not departing from a pre-existing consensus? You may not unilaterally (or quixotically) saddle me with that burden. Non Curat Lex (talk) 07:11, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Right to an abortion
Some feminists have claimed thar the right to an abortion is a fundamental right. I'm not sure how they came to that conclusion, but we should maybe look for sources on just how important the right to an abortion really is in contemporary legislation. ADM (talk) 00:16, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Right to contract with proportional bargaining power
I requested citation regarding the right to contract with equal bargaining power. I don't deny the right to contract; I am hesitant, however, to believe that proportional bargaining power is a necessity.70.178.74.131 (talk) 17:00, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Right to marry
There is no debate about this. The U.S. Supreme Court has, in the most unambiguous terms, recognized the right to marry as fundamental. In the Loving v. Virginia decision, the court declared: Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival. The inclusion of the right to marry at the appropriate point in the article is in no way "controversial". The IP is reverted.—DCGeist (talk) 05:49, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Fails to distinguish between Fundamental rights and fundamental interest
This article does mixes and confuses fundamental rights under substantive due process with fundamental interests under the Equal Protection Clause. It is inaccurate as such. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.49.230.151 (talk) 21:44, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Response to abortion as fundamental right
There is no fundamental right to an abortion, however, abortion is covered by the fundamental right to privacy (Griswold) and the fundamental right to personal autonomy/bodily integrity of procreation (Roe). So by extension, there is a right to abortion as limited by in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.49.230.151 (talk) 21:51, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Right of Self Defense
While the manner of self defense may be debated, the fact that one is able to defend their own life, and often the lives of others, is universally accepted.

The thread should lead to discussions about the various views regarding self defense, such as the United States' Right to Bear Arms, but that should not be the focus or nullify the fact that this right has been codified and understood forever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_self-defense

Rich 16:07, 21 April 2014 (UTC)