Statue of Equality, Paris.
Allegory of equality
Equality before the law, also known as equality under the law, equality in the eyes of the law, or legal equality, is the principle under which all people are subject to the same laws of justice (due process).[1] Law also raises important and complex issues concerning equality, fairness, and justice. There is an old saying that 'All are equal before the law.' The author Anatole France said in 1894, "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal loaves of bread."[2] The belief in equality before the law is called legal egalitarianism.
Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law."[1]
According to the United Nations, this principle is particularly important to the minorities and to the poor.[1]
Thus, everyone must be treated equally under the law regardless of their race, gender, national origin, color, ethnicity, religion, disability, or other characteristics, without privilege, discrimination, or bias.
Equality before the law is one of the basic principles of liberalism.[3][4]
Contents
- 1 History
- 2 Classical liberalism
- 3 Feminism
- 4 Nebraska
- 5 Parricide law
- 6 See also
- 7 References
- 8 Further reading
History
In his famous funeral oration of 431 BC, the Athenian leader Pericles discussed this concept. This may be the first known instance.
"If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way"[5]
Classical liberalism
Classical liberalism calls for equality before the law, not for equality of outcome.[3] Classical liberalism opposes pursuing group rights at the expense of individual rights.[4]
Feminism
Equality before the law is a tenet of some branches of feminism. In the nineteenth century, sex equality before the law was a radical goal, but later feminist views may hold that formal legal equality is not enough to create actual and social equality between women and men. An ideal of formal equality may penalize women for failing to conform to a male norm, while an ideal of different treatment may reinforce sexist stereotypes.[6]
In 1988, prior to serving as a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote: "Generalizations about the way women or men are ... cannot guide me reliably in making decisions about particular individuals".[7] In an ACLU's Women's Rights Project in the 1970s Ginsburg challenged, in Frontiero v. Richardson, the laws that gave health service benefits to wives of servicemen but not to husbands of servicewomen.[8]
Some radical feminists, however, have opposed equality before the law, because they think that it maintains the weak position of the weak.[9]
Nebraska
The phrase "Equality before the law" is the motto of the State of Nebraska and appears on its state seal.
Parricide law
Article 200 of the Criminal Code of Japan, the penalty regarding parricide, was declared unconstitutional for violating the equality under the law by the Supreme Court of Japan in 1973, as a result of the trial of the Tochigi patricide case.[10]
See also
- All men are created equal
- Anti-discrimination law
- Civil and political rights
- Equal justice under law
- Equality of opportunity
- Global justice
- Isonomia
- Meritocracy
- Prerogative – the inverse of equality before the law
- Right to equal protection
- Rule according to higher law
- Rule of law
- Social equality
- List of civil rights leaders
- List of suffragists and suffragettes
- List of women's rights activists
References
- ^ a b c 7., description of the UN declaration article 7, the United Nations
- ^ (France, The Red Lily, Chapter VII).
- ^ a b Chandran Kukathas, "Ethical Pluralism from a Classical Liberal Perspective," in The Many and the One: Religious and Secular Perspectives on Ethical Pluralism in the Modern World, ed. Richard Madsen and Tracy B. Strong, Ethikon Series in Comparative Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), 61 (ISBN 0-691-09993-6).
- ^ a b Mark Evans, ed., Edinburgh Companion to Contemporary Liberalism: Evidence and Experience (London: Routledge, 2001), 55 (ISBN 1-57958-339-3).
- ^ Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, Written 431 B.C.E, Translated by Richard Crawley (1874), retrieved via Project Gutenberg.
- ^ Jaggar, Alison. (1994) "Part One: Equality. Introduction." In Living with Contradictions: Controversies in Feminist Social Ethics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
- ^ Jeff Rosen, "The Book of Ruth," New Republic, August 2, 1993, p. 19.
- ^ O'Dea, Suzanne. From Suffrage to the Senate: An Encyclopedia of American Women in Politics, ABC-CLIO, 1999
- ^ Martha Chamallas, "Feminist Constructions of Objectivity: Multiple Perspectives in Sexual and Racial Harassment Litigation," Texas Journal of Women and the Law 1 (1992): 95, 131, 125.
- ^ Dean, Meryll (2002). Japanese legal system. Routledge via Google Books. p. 535
Further reading
- Hudson, Adelbert Lathrop (1913). "Equality Before the Law," The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. CXII, pp. 679–688.
- Shenfield, Arthur A. (1973). "Equality Before the Law," Modern Age, Vol. XVII, No. 2, pp. 114–124.
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Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
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General principles
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- Article 1: Freedom, Egalitarianism, Dignity and Brotherhood
- Article 2: Universality of rights
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International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
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- Articles 1 and 2: Right to freedom from discrimination
- Article 3: Right to life, liberty and security of person
- Article 4: Freedom from slavery
- Article 5: Freedom from torture or cruel and unusual punishment
- Article 6: Right to personhood
- Article 7: Equality before the law
- Article 8: Right to effective remedy from the law
- Article 9: Freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention or exile
- Article 10: Right to a fair trial
- Article 11.1: Presumption of innocence
- Article 11.2: Prohibition of retrospective law
- Article 12: Right to privacy
- Article 13.1: Freedom of movement
- Article 13.2: Right of return
- Article 14: Right of asylum
- Article 15: Right to a nationality
- Article 16: Right to marriage and family life
- Article 17: Right to property
- Article 18: Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
- Article 19: Freedom of opinion and expression and information
- Article 20.1: Freedom of assembly
- Article 20.2: Freedom of association
- Article 21.1: Right to participation in government
- Article 21.2: Right of equal access to public office
- Article 21.3: Right to universal suffrage
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International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
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- Article 22: Right to social security
- Article 23.1: Right to work
- Article 23.2: Right to equal pay for equal work
- Article 23.3: Right to just remuneration
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- Article 24: Right to rest and leisure
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- Article 25.2: Right to special care and assistance for mothers and children
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- Article 26.3: Right to choice of education
- Article 27: Right to science and culture
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Context, limitations and duties
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- Article 28: Social order
- Article 29.1: Social responsibility
- Article 29.2: Limitations of human rights
- Article 29.3: The supremacy of the purposes and principles of the United Nations
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| Article 30: |
- Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
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- Human rights category
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Substantive human rights
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Note: What is considered a human right is controversial and not all the topics listed are universally accepted as human rights.
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