Basic Rights Of Citizens Research Articles

SECURING THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY AGAINST THE STATE SURVEILLANCE

This research paper gives an overview on right to privacy as a fundamental and human right of every citizen and the important aspects are being covered subject to restrictions imposed by state. Privacy as a fundamental right has been upheld by the apex court of the nation and the activities of state which violates this essential and basic right needs to be considered by the judiciary under their power of judicial review and judicial activism Data in today’s society is used by the Big Tech companies to make millions of dollar and this trade of data undermines the basic right of citizens who do not want their nasty algorithm to affect the privacy of citizens. A number of cases has been heard by judiciary and the landmark judgments have provided for protection of right to privacy. Article 21 of Indian constitution has a very wide scope and the intent of the framers of the constitution when they framed this article was not to limit its applicability to life and liberty but also cover various other facets of it. This paper will further provide a comprehensive analysis on right to privacy in India.

Standard-Bearers of Equality: America's First Abolition Movement by Paul J. Polgar

Reviewed by: Standard-Bearers of Equality: America's First Abolition Movement by Paul J. Polgar Eric Herschthal (bio) Standard-Bearers of Equality: America's First Abolition Movement. By Paul J. Polgar. (Chapel Hill: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and University of North Carolina Press, 2019. Pp. 342. Cloth, $39.95.) For the past several decades, many scholars have portrayed the original abolitionist societies of the revolutionary era as pale comparisons to their more radical antebellum successors. Unlike the Garrisonian movement, the first abolitionist societies prioritized gradual emancipation laws that promised freedom to enslaved people only after they completed decades of service and only to those born after the law's passage. These societies were composed exclusively of well-heeled white men, who believed that [End Page 107] the best way to defeat prejudice and give freed Black Americans a fighting chance at full citizenship was for free Blacks to uplift themselves through education, sobriety, and moral rectitude. Though early abolitionists helped all six original northern states pass some form of gradual emancipation law by 1804, in less than two decades newly freed Black northerners were stripped of basic citizenship rights, while many early white abolitionists began to see colonization—the voluntary removal of freed Blacks—as the only viable path to nationwide emancipation. In Paul Polgar's audacious account of what he calls "first movement abolitionism," this narrative requires revision. The first abolitionist societies worked closely with free Black northerners and fervently advocated full Black citizenship. While Polgar does not deny early white abolitionists' paternalism or ignore the limitations of their gradualist approach, he convincingly demolishes any presumption that the first abolitionist societies were skeptical about Black people's essential equality or equal place in the new nation. Though first movement abolitionists displayed less militancy and urgency than Garrisonians, they were no less committed to the complete destruction of slavery and racism. Standard-Bearers of Equality focuses on the Pennsylvania Abolition Society (PAS) and the New-York Manumission Society (NYMS), the early republic's most influential abolition societies, as well as their close relationships with the nation's most prominent free Black leaders: Absalom Jones, James Forten, and Peter Williams Jr., among many others. By closely reading abolition society minutes and the papers of free Black northern leaders, Polgar underscores that early abolitionism was far more interracial than an emphasis on the exclusively white membership of the early societies suggests. Moreover, he shows that early white abolitionists' interests in funding free Black schools and churches, rooted in a belief that Black uplift would defeat white racism, was nearly identical to what many Black northern leaders promoted. Though it may have been paternalistic and naive to believe that proper Black behavior would eradicate white racism, it was neither exclusive to white abolitionists nor evidence of anti-Black prejudice. Polgar contends that early abolitionists' support for full Black citizenship can be best evinced in their basic strategy of enforcing and expanding the first gradual emancipation laws—premised on the assumption that enslavement was a violation of what Polgar calls "elemental citizenship" (143). But a more compelling case lies in the mountain of evidence he provides that show Black and white abolitionists routinely challenging any attempt to curb free Black political rights. When the New York state legislature considered its first gradual emancipation law in 1785, slavery's [End Page 108] advocates added amendments that would have denied Black men the right to vote, hold office, and serve on juries featuring white defendants. But the NYMS rallied against the bill precisely because it would have turned freed Blacks into second-class citizens. (The eventual abolition that did pass in 1799 placed no restrictions on Black political rights.) Likewise, white and Black abolitionists successfully defeated the Pennsylvania legislature's numerous attempts to curb Black voting rights between 1805 and 1813. Yet early abolitionists' initial optimism began to sour in the 1820s. In his final chapters, Polgar meticulously reconstructs the reasons why many, if hardly all, white abolitionists began to embrace colonization in the 1820s. The emergence of the American Colonization Society in 1816 reinvigorated a conservative antislavery impulse in the Upper South, convincing many northern white abolitionists that southern slaveholders could...

Perlindungan Hak Konstitusional Di Indonesia

The basis for the establishment of the Constitutional Court is an effort to uphold the principles of a rule of law and to provide maximum protection for democracy and basic rights of citizens. As the main objective of the rule of law is to protect the freedom of individual citizens from the State's power. The purpose of this research is to answer the question of what constitutional rights are citizens and how they are protected in Indonesia. This research uses a normative juridical approach by examining theories, concepts, legal principles and laws and regulations obtained from legal material sources such as books, articles / writings and other documents, then the data is analyzed so that it will provide conclusions. The results show that constitutional rights are rights that include civil rights, political rights, economic rights, and socio-cultural rights guaranteed by the 1945 Constitution, for their protection efforts through the process of forming laws that reflect the protection and respect for human rights and dignity. and dignity and if there is a law that is detrimental to their rights, they can file a constitutionality review in the Constitutional Court

Integrated Strategies to Reduce Poverty Rate Through Innovation of E-Kembang Village and Poverty SIM in Bangka Regency and Pati Regency

Based on Presidential Regulation of the Republic of Indonesia Number 13 of 2009 concerning the Coordination of Poverty Reduction that poverty is an urgent national problem and requires systematic, integrated and comprehensive handling steps and approaches, in order to reduce the burden and fulfill the basic rights of citizens properly to take and develop a dignified life. Therefore, this study aims to determine the extent of innovation carried out by the regions, especially Bangka Regency and Pati Regency in overcoming poverty that occurs in their area. With this research, it is hoped that it can become a bridge or facilitator for other regions in seeking innovations in the field of welfare to solve poverty so that it is not only the regions concerned that apply this innovation and can be a solution to realize more prosperous districts/cities in Indonesia. This study uses a qualitative approach. The population in this study is an area that has made innovations in order to minimize poverty that occurs in their area. While the research subjects are in Bangka Regency which has the name E-KEMBANG DESA innovation (Bangka Poverty with Systems and Applications), and Pati Regency with the name SIM POVERTY (Poverty Reduction Management Information System) innovation from Bappeda Pati. This research shows that the innovations made by the regions in minimizing poverty can support the creation of a more prosperous environment and reduce poverty in the areas where innovation occurs. In addition, one of the results of the innovation of E-KEMBANG DESA (Bangka Poverty with Systems and Applications) is that it has succeeded in making planning and budgeting documents, the acceleration of poverty reduction in Bangka Regency is sought to synergize and synchronize planning and financing. While one of the results of the innovation of SIM POVERTY (Poverty Reduction Management Information System) Bappeda Pati is the use of information technology-based so as to create data accuracy by integrating NIK.

An Essay on Islam and Human Rights: With Special Reference to Qur’anic Perspective

Islam is a universal and inspired religion. Islam is the second most widely practiced religion in the world after Christianity. It is a religion based on the ideology of the Qur’an. It is completely dedicated to the oneness and supremacy of Allah. From the earliest times man has been in search of truth. Muslims are one of those who have accepted the messages of the spiritual prophets in an effort to reach reality. Islam is also called the primary religion. It is a prophetic and Semitic religion. Its arrival is believed to have started with the arrival of Hazrat Adam (PBUH) and Eve. After this many prophets came and the last prophet was Hazrat Muhammad . This study seeks to consider the context of human rights in the light of the Qur’an.In this research article an attempt has been made to study the existence of human and human rights in Islam. Various aspects of human rights have been studied, including the Qur’anic qutoes and the special references to various scholars. The rights under the independent Charter for the basic rights of citizens under the Islamic State have been briefly studied, so that Islamic human rights can be analyzed.

Some Some issues on the employee’s right to unilaterally terminate the employment contract under the 2019 Labor Code

Article 35 of the Vietnamese Constitution 2013 stipulates that "Citizens have the right to work, choose a career and workplace." This is one of the basic rights of citizens and is concretized by an array of different regulations to regulate the labor relations between employees and employers. Of the regulations, provisions on the employee's right to unilaterally terminate the employment contract are emphasized. Within the scope of this article, the author points out a number of issues which are associated with the employee's rights to unilaterally terminate the employment contract stipulated in the Labor Code 2019, specifically the provisions in Section 3, Chapter III. In order to clarify and deepen the issues, the author uses the comparison method between the provisions of the Labor Code 2019 and the provision of the Labor Code 2012, reviewing and analyzing the issues of grounds and procedures for exercising the right to unilaterally terminate the employment contract of the employee; rights and obligations of employees when unilaterally terminating the employment contract legally; rights and obligations of employees when unilaterally terminating the employment contract illegally. In particular, the issues of grounds for the termination of the employment contract, a notice period before the unilateral termination of the employment contract, severance allowances and unemployment benefits are analyzed thoroughly to highlight the positive points as well as the gaps that currently exist and affect employees and employers. Finally, the author gives a number of recommendations to improve the legal regulations, creating balance and stability in labor relations as well as sustainable development for the economy and society.

Trabajo Social Comunitario en materia de vivienda: redefinición y desafíos a partir de un estudio de caso

La vivienda, como estructura central de la sociedad y derecho básico de la ciudadanía, representa un elemento clave para una vida digna, así como para la integración social. Su pérdida, por tanto, significa una carencia material y, al mismo tiempo, un proceso de ruptura que socava la estabilidad y la salud de quienes la viven en primera persona para acabar sumiéndolos en la exclusión. En esta coyuntura, el Trabajo Social se presenta como un agente idóneo y necesario para la intervención, no sólo sobre sus consecuencias, sino también sobre sus causas. En este artículo se expone un estudio de caso centrado en una intervención, basada en las metodologías de la profesión a nivel individual y comunitario, desarrollada en un proceso de desahucio colectivo en un pequeño poblado del norte de España. A partir de esta experiencia particular, se reflexiona acerca del papel deficitario que el Trabajo Social está cumpliendo en materia de vivienda, siguiendo la tendencia asistencialista de actuaciones puntuales que carecen de una continuidad e impacto real sobre la raíz del problema. Se concluye, así, la pertinencia de poner en marcha, especialmente al abordar procesos de desahucio, intervenciones desde una perspectiva integral y comunitaria, así como la necesidad de un posicionamiento profesional crítico que no pierda de vista el objetivo transformador de su práctica.

The limits of localism: a decade of disaster on homelessness in England

The rhetoric and practice of localism has attracted significant support within both political and academic circles in the UK in recent years. However, it is the contention of this article that there are, or should be, limits to localism as applied to the basic citizenship rights of vulnerable people. Drawing on a ten-year, mixed-methods study, we use the example of sharply rising homelessness in England to illustrate our argument that localist policymaking has an intrinsic tendency to disadvantage socially marginalised groups. While we acknowledge the central role played by austerity in driving up homelessness over the past decade, we advance the case that the post-2010 localist agenda of successive UK governments has also had an independent and malign effect. At the very least, we seek to demonstrate that localism cannot be viewed as a taken-for-granted progressive model, with centralism (that is, the consistent implementation of a policy across a whole country) also perfectly defensible on progressive grounds in relevant circumstances.

Attualizzare il learnfare: un nuovo legame tra lifelong learning e welfare

Lifelong learning (LLL) is increasingly considered to be one of the basic rights of citizenship, a lever for inclusion, for economic and social participation. As the Eu-ropean paradigm of active welfare state and its heir (i.e., the Social investment welfare state) affirm, this assumption is even more true in the context of the cur-rent socio-economic transformations and their related impacts on the individual’s life courses. To meet the related challenges, LLL is placed at the very centre of the activation policies, according to the learnfare rationale. However, this strategy reveals to have lights and shadows, which the article investigates on a theoretical level. In the conclusions the article proposes a renewed vision of the learnfare par-adigm, reframing it through the capability approach.

Speed strategy of public administration services in fulfilling the basic rights of citizens in rural areas in Indonesia

The main purpose of this research is to examine the speed strategy of public administration services in fulfilling the basic rights of citizens in rural areas in Indonesia. The method in this research is descriptive type with quantitative approach and use explanatory survey. The target of the research was villagers in four districts in Jambi Province. The instrument used to collect the data is by using a structured questionnaire given to the sample respondents. The statistical tool to examine the hypotehsis is by using Partial Least Square (PLS) method with smart-PLS as the software. The study found that the speed strategy of public administration services has a positive and significant influence on fulfilling the basic rights of citizens in rural areas. However, these positive and significant effect towards fulfilling the basic rights of citizens are mediated by public administration services. These suggest that the role of public administration services in rural areas should be transparent, accountable, and it needs to accommodate public participants and public right equally.

A right to birth registration in the Victorian Charter? Seek and you shall not find!

Many people have placed Victoria on a pedestal because it was the first (and still only) state in Australia to have enacted human rights legislation. The Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic) replicates many of the rights protected in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but notably fails to include art 24(2) which recognises the right to birth registration. This omission is likely to have a disproportionately negative impact on Indigenous Victorians, who, it has recently been discovered, are experiencing difficulties in their dealings with the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Many Indigenous people are being denied basic rights of citizenship such as obtaining a driver's licence or passport because they are unable to produce a copy of their birth certificate; the universally accepted proof of identity document. This article explores the problems faced by Indigenous Victorians in relation to birth registration and birth certificates, and analyses the extent to which the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic) can provide redress, notwithstanding the absence of a specific provision regarding the right to birth registration.

The Position of Religious Minorities in Indonesia’s Democratic Transition: A Study toward Critical Overview

The problems of democratic transition as a context of this study will be analyzed. Also, violence and political exclusion of the religious minority groups will be explained. At the end of the chapter, the possibility of political will and legal solutions for violence against religious minority groups in Indonesia in the post-1998 era are discussed. It is explained that a comprehensive legal protection scheme would be needed to realize the rights of religious minorities in Indonesia. One of the fundamental purposes of democratization in the post-authoritarian era is thus shown to be the protection of religious minority groups. The chapter will first discuss the problem of democratic changes with a focus on the politics of decentralization and the critical practice of civil democracy, which will all be explored, the two significant changes affecting the position of religious minorities in Indonesia. The chapter will then consider the exclusion of religious minorities and the failure of the ‘democratic’ state to protect their basic citizenship rights. Next, the role of the state and of civil society in the implementation of non-respect of legal protection for religious minority communities will be considered based on the critical overview.

Ambiguous Bonds: Relationships between Farm Workers and Land Beneficiaries after Zimbabwe’s Land Reform Programme

In this article, I examine the complex interplay between authority, land rights and belonging in new resettlement areas as revealed through relationships between ‘landed’ beneficiaries and ‘landless’ farm workers living on farms a decade after Zimbabwe’s land reform programme. Land beneficiaries and farm workers shared ambiguous moral bonds: land beneficiaries relied on farm workers to make their land productive, but the two groups were also closely connected socially and shared complex relations of dependency. However, in moments of conflict, land beneficiaries reconfigured farm workers not only as ‘ethnic others’ but as unrighteous beings, lacking in moral substance. Working through a land-cum-labour dispute between a small-scale land beneficiary and a group of farm workers that was taken to a local chief’s court, I argue that such discourses of moral lack can be read as attempts by land beneficiaries to assert and naturalise their authority over farm workers. Despite having been largely excluded from state land allocations, farm workers maintained a sense of entitlement to live on farms and own land left to them by their previous white employers. Land beneficiaries’ distancing of farm workers was used to try and delegitimise this sense of entitlement, contributing to the production and reproduction of a rural underclass of farm workers excluded not only from land, but also from basic citizenship rights.

On Faulkner, Racism, and Life in (the) Ruins

On Faulkner, Racism, and Life in (the) Ruins Aliyyah I. Abdur-Rahman (bio) The impetus, or aspirational motivation, behind the production of this special issue of The Faulkner Journal, which focuses on race, racism, and the work (or, perhaps, simply the possibility) of anti-racism in William Faulkner's oeuvre, was the murder of George Floyd in 2020. It was in the evening on a Monday in May of that year when the 911 call came in from an employee at the CUP convenience store in south Minneapolis. The store clerk alleged that an African American patron, later identified as 46-year-old George Floyd, had used a counterfeit $20 bill to purchase cigarettes. Four police officers arrived and attempted to arrest Floyd, who was distressed and who struggled. Despite his numerous and panicked cries of anxiety, discomfort, and, eventually, of being unable to breathe, Floyd was forcibly handcuffed and pinned face-down to the ground. While a fourth officer stood by to prevent horrified bystanders from intervening in the murder they were witnessing, three police officers held George Floyd on the ground. One officer, Derek Chauvin, kept his knee pressed into Floyd's neck for approximately nine minutes—as Floyd complained of being unable to breath, as his body went limp, as he was asphyxiated to death, as paramedics arrived to attempt resuscitation. Within twenty minutes of the arrival of the police, George Floyd was dead. It is noteworthy that he was killed during those terrifying, early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. The country was in lockdown. In fact, Floyd had lost his job due to pandemic layoffs. By the time of his murder, there had been nearly 100,000 Covid-related deaths, and only a week prior the World Health Organization had received reports of more cases within a 24-hour timeframe than at any point during the outbreak. It was a disastrous time in all the world. And yet people took to the streets—en masse, across the globe. Certainly, this was not the first time that Black murder had been caught on camera, nor was it the first time that Black death had gone viral. In fact, since the time of ritual lynching, Black people dying gruesomely has been coextensive with spectatorship and with technologies [End Page 121] of viewing and memorialization. But there was something about the murder of George Floyd—perhaps, the stomach-turning pointlessness of it, the cruel and determined duration of it, or the lethal performance of white cis masculine swagger and authority that executed it—that brought Trump's America to its knees and inspired a planetary outcry. This special issue was designed to hear and to engage that outcry. It does so against the sociopolitical backdrop of the murder of George Floyd as one of countless (simultaneously legal and extralegal) lethal enactments of antiblack racist terror two decades into the twenty-first century, the global uprising on behalf of Black life and against police brutality that ensued, and the "racial reckoning" to which both George Floyd's murder and the uprising purportedly gave rise. In moments of shared powerlessness and of powerful insurgency, it is commonplace for those of us who study and teach literature to turn to authors and to literary texts as repositories of truth and ethical guidance, as sources of societal critique and renewal. Our cultural and political present is characterized by climate crisis and ecological devastation; by the popularization of racist, nationalist, and xenophobic discourses and policies; by the dismantling of normative protocols of democratic governance and the erosion of the most basic rights of citizenship; and by the persistent imperilment of Black and brown lives and life chances in the US and abroad. For readers and scholars of William Faulkner, it seems fitting to turn to his writing. Few white American writers have, as has William Faulkner, reckoned with human frailty in the face of collective violence wrought by a society structured by white supremacy and antiblack racism. Few white American writers have, as has William Faulkner, deployed the literary to imagine how Americans might rend survivable futures from the world-historical crimes of racial slavery and its ongoing manifestations in Jim Crow segregation...

Fiqh of Budgeting: Study of Management of the State Budget for People's Welfare in the Perspective of Maqâshid al-Shari'ah

The budget plays an important role, both in Islamic political fiqh discourse and in the national constitutional dictum. However, hegemony of capitalism has implications for the low state budget that is allocated to meet the needs of the poor. Budgeting policies are considered to be more in favor of the interests of investors than for the people welfare. This study aims to explore the repertoire of Islamic law in managing the state budget in a participatory manner for people's welfare. Through qualitative research, this study relies on library resources that contain management of the state budget in the budgetary fiqh narrative and the maqâshid al-shari'ah as the main basis of this literature study. The results of this study reveal that the state has an obligation to prosper the people. In a fiqh perspective, the mandate to serve people's needs require a participatory mechanism. Community participation in assessing the basic needs of the people can guarantee the state budget plan for effective and targeted development. In addition, the basic rights of citizens regarding education, economy, culture, law and politics are guaranteed as part of the implementation of the principles of the maqâshid al-shari'ah in the management of the state budget.

Poverty Reduction Service Model in the Integrated Service Unit for Poverty Reduction (UPT-PK) of Sragen Regency

The focus of research is on poverty reduction service models based on education, health, social economy, and data integration as well as implementation constraints. The study uses a qualitative legal research approach to the type of sociological juridical research using interactive analysis models analysis. The problem of poverty is a complex multidimensional as a general social phenomenon that requires countermeasures, systematic handling, integrated, comprehensive. These efforts are used to reduce the burden and fulfill the basic rights of citizens appropriately to create a prosperous community life. The current poverty reduction models tend to be off-target, convoluted bureaucracy, weak monitoring and evaluation, overlapping authority, and budget waste. Therefore, the Sragen Regency Government established the Poverty Reduction Service Unit (UPT-PK). The unit is a cross-sectoral integrated service unit in carrying out poverty reduction to simplify and facilitate the poor to access various government programs intended for them. Poverty alleviation is the policy of the Sragen Regency Government in realizing community welfare.

Lincoln and the Abolitionists by Stanley Harrold

Reviewed by: Lincoln and the Abolitionistsby Stanley Harrold Erik J. Chaput Lincoln and the Abolitionists. By Stanley Harrold. Concise Lincoln Library. ( Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2018. Pp. x, 155. $24.95, ISBN 978-0-8093-3641-8.) The editors of the Southern Illinois University Press series on Abraham Lincoln have assembled an impressive array of historians to write short volumes focusing on varying aspects of the life of the "Great Emancipator" and the Civil War era. To cover the all-important ground of Lincoln's complex relationship with abolitionists, the editors wisely selected Stanley Harrold, one of the leading authorities on the most important reform movement in early America. According to Harrold, the relationship between Lincoln and the abolitionists centered on the latter's efforts to "push" the president "toward their goal" of universal and immediate emancipation (p. 75). As Harrold notes, many abolitionists had a conflicted relationship of "admiration and doubt" with Lincoln during the Civil War years (p. 93). With the clear, concise prose and careful eye for detail that have been trademarks of his long and distinguished career, Harrold skillfully narrates how Lincoln's views concerning abolitionism and antislavery politics developed from the conservative positions he adopted from his hero Henry Clay (gradual emancipation coupled with colonization), to the more liberal and expansive positions put forth by William Lloyd Garrison (immediate [End Page 694]emancipation with basic rights of citizenship). However, Lincoln's rise to political power, as Harrold notes, was inextricably tied to partisan maneuvering and an unwavering conception of party loyalty, something that, more often than not, led Lincoln to shy away from the radical fringe of the American political order. Lincoln was not immune to the use of race-baiting in the political arena, as Harrold makes clear in a discussion of Lincoln's attacks on Martin Van Buren in 1840. During the war, however, abolitionist arguments began to influence Lincoln. The book does not shed much new light on Lincoln's political career, but Harrold's account of the positions espoused by the numerous factions within the abolitionist movement and how various individuals reacted to Lincoln's speeches and policy positions will be of interest to even the most veteran student. Whereas some writers fall into the trap of painting abolitionists as a monolithic group, Harrold provides details on four distinct wings of the movement, bringing into his narrative a wide cast of characters. Included in the discussion are the colorful and outspoken Parker Pillsbury and Stephen S. Foster, who never let up in their criticism of Lincoln, along with the prolific author and editor William Goodell. Harrold's treatment of abolitionists Ichabod Codding, Zebina Eastman, and Owen Lovejoy, the founders of the Republican Party in Illinois, will be of interest to scholars. The same is true of the efforts of Radical Republicans in early 1862 to bring leading abolitionists to the nation's capital to take part in a lecture series at the Smithsonian Institution. The final third of the book covers Lincoln's years in the Executive Mansion and the reactions of abolitionists to his policies and stated positions. One notable omission here, however, is a discussion of Lincoln's interactions with the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. In the end, in the wake of his tragic assassination, the majority of abolitionists found much to admire in Lincoln. In a speech at City Hall in Providence, Rhode Island, on June 1, 1865, Garrison heaped praise on Lincoln, the politician who had steered the ship of state through the complex waters of antislavery politics. Harrold's book captures this story well. Erik J. Chaput The Lawrenceville School Copyright © 2019 The Southern Historical Association

Religious Establishment According to a Substantive Ethics of Political Justice

Contemporary political theorists often disagree on whether or not religious establishment is justified in liberal states, even when its existence does not constitute a hindrance to the basic rights of citizens. In this article, I contend that religious established does not raise issues of democratic legitimacy, by showing that political frameworks of justice are entangled with substantive conceptions of the good and ethical forms of life. Then, drawing on Jürgen Habermas’s latest works on the relationship between religion and the public sphere, and Maeve Cooke’s readings thereof, I argue that religious symbols can contribute to the creation of meaningful imaginaries that inform moral norms and principles of justice. After this, I recall Axel Honneth’s conception of “struggles for recognition”, demonstrating that the recognition of specific collective traits, including religious, is necessary to provide citizens with a sense of worth and esteem.

Unstable rights

People with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Rio de Janeiro accessed basic rights of citizenship, including socioeconomic rights and even formal citizenship, through their use of the public health care system. Access to those rights, however, was unstable and this had life-and-death implications. I argue that patients could only fulfil their right to live after it had been jeopardised by the absence of basic socioeconomic rights that rendered life precarious. Thus, the right to live is not a prerequisite of other rights, but rather cannot be fulfilled without them. I discuss the politics of life in this context based on ethnographic fieldwork in an outpatient clinic for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and interviews with patients, health professionals, and activists, all conducted in 2009 and 2010 in Rio de Janeiro.

Konstruksi Kelembagaan Perwakilan Dalam Pelaksanaan Asas Kedaulatan Rakyat

Constitutionalism is not just a matter of dismantling pairs of texts and their institutions through the constitution, but rather as a leap of critical thinking and concrete actions to provide assurance of social welfare rights as basic rights of citizens who cannot be neglected at all by the organizers of power. That is one way to interpret constitutional theory and law to be more substantive, dignified and grounded for all citizens.