Eating Socio-Economic Rights
The usefulness of the discourse of rights is revisited in this article to
alleviate social problems. The article explains the "emptiness" of the South
African Constitutional Court's socioeconomic jurisprudence. The article
demonstrates that despite their transformative potential socioeconomic rights
are complicit too, and not victims of, the disengagement of the needs they
represent. As the rights are one of the only realistic policy instruments to
effectively address deprivation of socio-economic needs, we should not surrender
rights, but rather seek to turn theoretical socio-economic protections into
functional legal rights.
Rights Talk, Needs Talk, And The Challenge For Socioeconomic Rights
The author's belief in portraying these discussions on the socio-economic
justice issues, as found in the constitution of the Republic of South Africa in
1996. First, this essay seeks to add to the global debates about the
practicality and efficacy of social justice by socioeconomic equality. Second,
recognizing through intrinsic barriers to this initiative are visible but are
often ignored. Rights-talk enables people to affirm that rights holders have
intrinsic worth and to offer their demands to appease their material needs which
would otherwise be overshadowed political legitimacy. How the South African
Constitutional Court had enforced the justiciable socio-economic rights
jurisprudence has received a fair measure of praise for affirming the
justiciability of these rights. But it has also attracted critical criticism,
that socio-economic rights are immediately enforceable by the individuals.
Then the article talks about the closer consideration of how the Court
proceduralizes his inquiry into socio-economic obligations, the discourse on
socio-economic rights are not based on the interests which led to the
incorporation of socio-economic justice into the text of the constitution. Such
study describes the way that society uses discourse on rights to control and
eradicate social movements, as the representation of a political, social, and
economic status quo. It indicates that socio-economic rights articulation
deficiencies may greatly impede the promotion of social justice focused on
citizenship.
The argument here is not that the fundamental inherent inability of
socio-economic rights is to confront a large-scale denial of material necessity
effectively. In comparison, social freedoms have a tremendous ability to
profoundly affect the lives of their beneficiaries. But the article shows,
albeit that the ethos and philosophy of the judiciary are not the only barriers
to the meaningful achievement of socio-economic rights, nor is the legal basis
of the constitutionally-appointed and empowered socio-economic laws, without
unnecessarily limiting its ability, or exceeding their divisions. The
theoretical, conceptually empty articulation of social interests, which enables
structural confinement and removal of their desires remains a significant
additional impediment.
The success of the socio-economic rights as tools to redress the harmful effects
of material hardship depends on the right of its beneficiaries to link cogently
to their needs and experience and to achieve a tangible improvement in their
livelihood. The rejection of freedom was one of the key features of the
CLS(Critical Legal Studies) bursary at the beginning and the mid-1890s. CLS
scholars argued that the nature of the debate on rights is relatively
significant but related minor changes can make it difficult to maintain that the
right remains implied that it converts real experiences (repeat) into a closed
system, which we should value for our own benefit, and prevent progressive
social forces from advancing. The dialogue on freedom can be distorted by
prominent members of society to distinguish their perceived privilege roles.
At last, the article talks about, Liberal freedoms may be applied, first, in
marginalizing social power systems and secondly, in sabotaging state efforts to
achieve equal equality, to problems confronting disadvantaged sections of
society.
Frank Michelman has shown that the discourse on rights can by its tendencies
towards abstraction and proceduralization removes from the practical experience
material deprivation the focus of rights-based socioeconomic litigation. In the
context of poverty alleviation, the use of equal protection theory argued the
effectiveness of legal actions to address social difficulties relied on the
potential of the individuals they tried to protect and encourage them to cope
with their true, physical needs. If courts request that such needs be
incorporated into abstract and relation legal standards, they risk making those
needs incomprehensible (and therefore irrelevant) to the case. Michelman
submitted that what was necessary is to adopt a preliminary approach that
identifies and tries directly to satisfy certain core social needs. CLS scholars
suggested that a focus on needs would be more useful in the quest for social
justice and that social benefits could more effectively be guaranteed for poor
and marginalized groups in society.
The Foundation should be "a substantive conception of good society," which in
turn would facilitate the formulation of a coherent, needs-oriented theory for
positive rights, to unleash that rights-discourse potential. According to Robin
West, Society mustn't only respect the free will of the citizen and must
preserve the civil and political freedom that is necessary to pursue the good
life, both individually and collectively, but also assure constructive access to
such social amenities in society that it is capable of living in agreement with
its human dignity. Socioeconomic rights could never in isolation be put into
place and their protection values are undifferentiated, interrelated, and
undivided.
The protections of socioeconomic rights alongside civil and political rights
will combat many of liberal rights vulnerabilities (as mentioned by CLS
scholars). By providing enforceable access to goods and services which are
essential to human survival and growth, socio-economic rights appear capable of
bringing the concept of rights and needs into productive harmony. Ensuring
socio-economic rights contributes to achieving a society that is ultimately
fairer and that respects and confirms equal human dignity for all citizens. When
socio-economic rights must work effectively as legislative tools to remedy and
overcome a lack of need, their application shall be relevant to the interests
and conditions of their objects, in particular substantive
circumstances. Besides, socio-economic rights are only valuable to rights
bearers if rights can improve physically their lives tangibly.
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