The concept of 'public space of fundamental rights' (public space and the exercise of fundamental rights)

Abstract

The expression 'public space of fundamental rights' refers to public space as related to the exercise of fundamental rights. The present paper aims to identify what is 'public space'; the underlying thesis is that, in democracy, fundamental rights require a public space in which they can be expressed, since exercising them creates a public sphere in whose absence the democratic system would not be recognisable. The public space of fundamental rights is therefore not only a physical space, but also - and especially in the public sphere - the bundle of communications created by the exercise of fundamental rights within the community. Delimiting physical and virtual public spaces is not an administrative but a constitutional matter, something that also applies to the regulation of what can and cannot be done in it. The present paper studies from this perspective the crisis of public space and the new public spaces.