Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

What are our Rights?

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What are our Rights?

Whenever a government is formed in a state, one of its top priority matters is maintaining the rights of its citizens. In today's world of ours when the nations of world claim to be civilized and they have formed democratic systems of government the rights of the subjects have been emphasized to a great extent. Moreover, today the governments of the world, at least in theory, are accountable to its people as they are formed with their consent through the process of elections.

However, even in today's modern and so-called civilized world of ours there are many nations in the world that do not have the opportunity of enjoying democratic systems of government and suffer under the authoritarian rules of the self-centered rulers. There are still certain governments in the world that resemble the ancient monarchy in their functions.

The rulers are still selected on the hereditary basis and other sorts of biased selections not on the principles of just elections. It is unfortunate to note that there are countries in the world that claim to have democracy but are in fact ruled by non-democratic principles. Afghanistan is also one of the countries that represent themselves as democratic countries but lack the basic principles of democracy.

One of the most important requirements of democracy is that it must respect and maintain the rights of its citizens. Unfortunately, Afghanistan has not been able to do so. The Afghan government after being elected through a controversial election has not been able to provide the rudimentary requirements to teeming millions.

The people suffer because of deficiency of basic needs while the government has no time for such grave issues and is involved in corruption and other considerations. Apart from corruption, the authorities in Afghan government have been very much inefficient, mostly because they are unqualified.

The development and welfare have been neglected or the authorities are confused on how to make use of resources for the development purposes. The report of development works in the ongoing fiscal year is an evident example of the negligence and incompetency.

The allocated budget for development has been $ 2 billion dollars and even half of it has not been utilized so far and the year (solar calendar 1390) is going to end within in a couple of months. Even more unfortunate is the fact that people are so incognizant that they do not even realize that their part of development budget is going to waste. This clearly shows negligence of rights of citizens both by the government and the people themselves.

'What, basically, rights are?' and 'What are the basic rights of citizens in a society?' are not easy questions to answer as there have been different theories regarding rights of the citizens and the determination of basic rights. With the evolution of political systems from monarchy to today's democratic states, the concept of rights have also evolved from very reserved to a very generous one.

In the autocratic political systems rights were considered as offshoot of the monistic theory of sovereignty, according to which the rights were considered as the creation of the state. A person could have only those rights which were granted to him by the law of the state. The state not only created but also maintained and enforced those rights. It also reserved the right to make necessary modifications in those rights.

But with the creation of welfare states the theories of rights have taken a leap forward. The modern welfare theory holds that the rights are conditions of social welfare. The rights are created by the society and aim at realizing the social welfare. In simple worlds the rights are those conditions which make the individual and the society happy.

These conditions must enjoy precedence over customs, usages, traditions and natural rights. An individual cannot have any rights which go against public welfare. The Utilitarians fully supported this theory and propounded the principles of 'greatest happiness of the greatest number.' Moreover, in order to counter the economic disparities between the rich and poor class people there has been economic theory of rights as well. This theory, mainly associated with the name of Marx, tries to interpret the rights in terms of the economic system prevailing in a country.

The law preserves the conditions which are conducive to the interest of the dominant economic class. According to this view during the feudal period the rights were essentially meant to promote the feudal interests just as in the present capitalist age they promote the interests of the capitalists.

For the economically deprived people there are no rights. According to this theory there can be genuine rights for all the members of the society only under a socialist system. In addition to these theories there are theories based on ethical and moral values and ideal concepts.

The ideal theory of rights views the rights in purely moral terms and considers them essential for the moral development of the individual. Green described the rights as powers 'necessary to the fulfillment of man's vocation as a moral being.'

This theory holds that an individual cannot realize his full stature without rights. The rights enable the individual to develop his physical, mental and moral faculties to the maximum limit and ultimately contribute to the development of the society as a whole.

Though the modern theories of rights have shortcomings but they have played dominant role in determining the basic rights of human beings. Today, most of the states in the world agree that the basic rights of human beings include both moral and legal rights, whereas the legal rights include the civil rights, like right to life, right to family, right to property, right to freedom of speech and expression, right to form associations and move about freely, right to work, right to religion, right to equality and right to education, and the political rights, like the right to vote, the right to contest elections, right to public office, right to petition and the right to criticize government.

Though there have been both national and international endeavors to protect basic rights of human beings, still there are many human beings who suffer from the deprivation of their basic rights. Many governments in the world like that of our country Afghanistan, still lack the basic democratic principles and the requirements of welfare state and therefore fail to provide the citizens their due rights. To be very specific about Afghanistan we can say that a so-called democratic government has been installed, which has taken oath to provide the people their basic rights, yet there are millions who remain unattended.

Dilawar Sherzai is the permanent writer of the Daily outlook Afghanistan. He can be reached at outlookafghanistan@gmail.com

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