Fundamental Rights & their Significance
What is Fundamental Rights ?
- Fundamental Rights is a charter of rights contained in the Constitution of India.
- What is does ?
- It guarantees civil liberties such that all Indians can lead their lives in peace and harmony as citizens of India.
- Sub rights under Fundamental Rights
These include individual rights common to most liberal democracies, such as equality before law, freedom of speech and expression, and peaceful assembly, freedom to practice religion, and the right to constitutional remedies for the protection of civil rights by means of writs such as habeas corpus.
- Violation of these rights result in punishments as prescribed in the Indian Penal Code or other special laws, subject to discretion of the judiciary. The Fundamental Rights are defined as basic human freedoms that every Indian citizen has the right to enjoy for a proper and harmonious development of personality.
- Aliens (persons who are not citizens) are also considered in matters like equality before law. They are enforceable by the courts, subject to certain restrictions. The Rights have their origins in many sources, including England’s Bill of Rights, the United States Bill of Rights and France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man.
Note :
- These rights universally apply to all citizens, irrespective of race, place of birth, religion, caste or gender.
- Fundamental rights recognized by the Indian constitution
- Right to equality:
- Which includes equality before law, prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, gender or place of birth, and equality of opportunity in matters of employment, abolition of untouchability and abolition of titles.
- Right to freedom:
- Which includes freedom of speech and expression, assembly, association or union or cooperatives, movement, residence, and right to practice any profession or occupation (some of these rights are subject to security of the State, friendly relations with foreign countries, public order, decency or morality), right to life and liberty, protection in respect to conviction in offences and protection against arrest and detention in certain cases.
- Right against exploitation:
- Which prohibits all forms of forced labour, child labour and traffic of human beings
- Right to freedom of religion:
- Which includes freedom of conscience and free profession, practice, and propagation of religion, freedom to manage religious affairs, freedom from certain taxes and freedom from religious instructions in certain educational institutes.
- Cultural and Educational rights:
- Preserve the right of any section of citizens to conserve their culture, language or script, and right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.
- Right to constitutional remedies:
- Which is present for enforcement of Fundamental Rights.
- Right to life:
- Which gives the right to live with human dignity. This includes rights such as right to clean environment, water, education, health, livelihood, shelter and basic amenities that the state shall provide.
- Right to education:
- It is the latest addition to the fundamental rights.
- Right to Information:
- RTI stands for Right To Information and has been given the status of a fundamental right under Article 19(1) of the Constitution.
- Furthermore, Fundamental rights for Indians have also been aimed at overturning the inequalities of pre-independence social practices. Specifically, they have also been used to abolish untouchability and thus prohibit discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth.
- They also forbid trafficking of human beings and forced labour. They also protect cultural and educational rights of ethnic and religious minorities by allowing them to preserve their languages and also establish and administer their own education institutions.
- Significance of Fundamental Rights
- The fundamental rights were included in the constitution because they were considered essential for the development of the personality of every individual and to preserve human dignity.
- The writers of the constitution regarded democracy of no avail if civil liberties, like freedom of speech and religion were not recognized and protected by the State.
- According to them, “Democracy” is, in essence, a government by opinion and therefore, the means of formulating public opinion should be secured to the people of a democratic nation. For this purpose, the constitution guaranteed to all the citizens of India the freedom of speech and expression and various other freedoms in the form of the fundamental rights.
- All people, irrespective of race, religion, caste or sex, have been given the right to move the Supreme Court and the High Courts for the enforcement of their fundamental rights.
- It is not necessary that the aggrieved party has to be the one to do so. Poverty stricken people may not have the means to do so and therefore, in the public interest, anyone can commence litigation in the court on their behalf. This is known as “Public interest litigation”.
- In some cases, High Court judges have acted on their own on the basis of newspaper reports.
- These fundamental rights help not only in protection but also the prevention of gross violations of human rights. They emphasize on the fundamental unity of India by guaranteeing to all citizens the access and use of the same facilities, irrespective of background. Some fundamental rights apply for persons of any nationality whereas others are available only to the citizens of India.
- The right to life and personal liberty is available to all people and so is the right to freedom of religion. On the other hand, freedoms of speech and expression and freedom to reside and settle in any part of the country are reserved to citizens alone, including non-resident Indian citizens.
- The right to equality in matters of public employment cannot be conferred to overseas citizens of India.
- Fundamental rights primarily protect individuals from any arbitrary state actions, but some rights are enforceable against individuals.
- For instance, the Constitution abolishes untouchability and also prohibits begar. These provisions act as a check both on state action as well as the action of private individuals. However, these rights are not absolute or uncontrolled and are subject to reasonable restrictions as necessary for the protection of general welfare.
- They can also be selectively curtailed. The Supreme Court has ruled that all provisions of the Constitution, including fundamental rights can be amended.
- However, the Parliament cannot alter the basic structure of the constitution. Since the fundamental rights can be altered only by a constitutional amendment, their inclusion is a check not only on the executive branch but also on the Parliament and state legislatures.
- A state of national emergency has an adverse effect on these rights. Under such a state, the rights conferred by Article 19 (freedoms of speech, assembly and movement, etc.) remain suspended. Hence, in such a situation, the legislature may make laws that go against the rights given in Article 19. Also, the President may by order suspend the right to move court for the enforcement of other rights as well.
