Term 2 (Rights and Responsibilities) Flashcards
What are rights?
Rights are entitlements that people have by legal or moral authority. Rights can be given by virtue of reaching a certain age e.g. right to vote once a person turns 18. Rights can also be given because we belong to a certain group, e.g. human rights whereby being a human entitles people to these rights.
What are responsibilities?
Responsibilities are legal or moral obligations that a person may have to another person, to a group, or to the state society, or other people in general. There are responsibilities to act in a particular way, for example, parents have legal and moral responsibility to take care of their children. There are also responsibilities to refrain form certain acts, for example, people have the responsibility not to commit to criminal acts.
What is the correlation between rights an responsibilities?
Where someone has a right to be treated in a particular way, someone else has a corresponding responsibility to uphold that right.
What are some example of the legal basis of rights?
Statue: the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cwth)
Common Law: the right to quiet enjoyment of property.
Constitution: right to freedom of religion.
What are some examples of the legal basis of responsibilities?
Statue: the Education Act 1990 (NSW) states that parents have the duty of enrolling their children in school and states have the duty to provide education of the highest quality.
Common Law: the ‘duty of care’ e.g. between employers and employees.
Differentiate between moral and legal rights.
The main difference between the two is that legal rights are enforceable whereas moral rights are not. There are also different viewpoints about whether a certain moral rights exists, whereas legal rights are clearly documented in the law.
What is the Bill of Rights (Australia does not have this)?
This is a document that may be part of a country’s constitution or as an Act of Parliament that would set out specific rights an individual is entitled to.
