Summary
This Green Paper, 'Rights and Responsibilities: Developing our Constitutional Framework' (Cm. 7577), addresses the central constitutional question of the relationship between the citizen and the state.
It considers how this relationship might best be defined in the context of rights, responsibilities and values, and examines a range of options for drawing up a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.
Bills of Rights all over the world have demonstrated great symbolic and cultural importance, as well as legal effect, and can act as an anchor in times of change and uncertainty.
This Paper considers responsibilities from an historical and practical perspective. It outlines the case for change: social and economic change has encouraged the rise of a less deferential, more consumerist public. It questions how to encourage and promote responsibility alongside the protection of individual rights.
Particular sections examine criminal justice, education and the family, and examples in international and national instruments.
The development of rights is also described from an historical perspective and the Paper discusses potential candidates for inclusion in any future Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, exploring options in relation to:
- The criminal justice system, including victims of crime;
- Equality;
- Good administration;
- Social justice and the welfare state;
- Healthcare;
- Children; and
- Living within environmental limits.
The legal effect of such a Bill, and how it might be enforced, is then discussed.
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