2.5. Civil and Political Rights

These rights are the cornerstones of modern liberal constitutions across the world. Those rights concerned with the structures of government and the institutions of public power are labelled political rights. While the ones inherently connected to the concept of real citizenship and participation in the political process are called as civil rights.

Civil rights are the basic legal rights a person must possess in order to ensure equal citizenship for all citizenry. They are the rights that constitute free and equal citizenship and include personal, political, and economic rights. These are those rights, which are available to the citizens of a country and are conferred to them either by law of the land or the constitution itself. For example, Right to Freedom.

Until the middle of the 20th century, civil rights were usually distinguished from ‘political rights’. The former included the rights to own property, make and enforce contracts, receive due process of law, and worship one’s religion; freedom of speech and the press. But they did not include the right to vote or to hold public office. These were thought to be political rights, reserved to adult males.

The civil-political distinction was used to classify citizens into different categories. However, the ideology that a certain segment of the adult citizenry could legitimately possess one bundle of rights, while another segment would have to make do with an inferior bundle, became increasingly implausible. In the end, the civil-political distinction has not withstood the test of time.