Support to Constitution Building

Some key ideas about rights

• You could say that people form a political community in order to protect their rights, especially rights of physical security, protection of property, family, etc.
  
  
• Rights are necessary for human beings to live in dignity, to fulfil their potential, to satisfy their physical and spiritual needs, etc. (indeed people sometimes leave one political community because their rights are not recognised, as the early founders of the USA left Europe because they had no freedom to practise their religion)
  
  
• Rights provide a framework for the entire constitution – establishing the relationship of the citizen and the state, limiting the power of the state and even the power of the majority over the minorities
  
  
• Rights can empower the people, giving them a central role in decision making by the state; in fact rights such the right to vote, freedom of expression and of the media, right of association, right of assembly and access to information are really important for the protection of a democratic system of government, including the accountability of public authorities
  
  
• Rights are sometimes said to be "inherent" in the human person. This means that you have rights because you are human, not because the state gives you rights, and you do not lose them because you become part of a political community. This idea is expressed in the Uganda Constitution (1995) as follows:
  
  Fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual are inherent and are not granted by the State (art. 20(1)).
  
  
• Rights can guide the state on how its powers are to be exercised – what is sometimes called a "rights based approach"
  
  
• Rights justify special treatment for disadvantaged groups and persons
  
  
• If the state respects human rights this would strengthen national unity
  
  
• If states (and non-state actors) respected human rights, national and international conflicts would be reduced and their effects be less serious.