Rights Duties and Freedoms
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RIGHTS, DUTIES AND FREEDOMS
Under the Human Rights Act 1998, which came into force in October 2000, there are certain rights and freedoms that are protected. The significance of this act is to offer legal rights to everyone in a democratic country. The United Kingdom does not have a written constitution, this is very unusual in a democracy, and our rights and freedoms have traditionally been protected by a presumption that we are free to do anything that is not covered by a specific forbidding law or piece of legislation. Under the Human Rights Act we now have that written confirmation of our rights, duties and freedoms. Anyone withholding those rights, for example wrongful imprisonment or racism is now liable for prosecution and possible imprisonment.
A citizen acquires certain rights at certain ages.
Sue for personal injury
From birth
Watch a film with `U classification
Watch a `PG film with parents or guardian
Drink alcohol at home, if an adult provides it.
Fully criminally responsible
Be given a supervision order as a criminal sanction
Legally capable of rape
Be sent to a Secure training centre as a criminal sanction
Consent to sex, but if an adult obliges they are guilty of a criminal offence
Drink alcohol in a licensed premises if it is with a meal
Marry with judicial/ parental consent
Consent to heterosexual sex
Purchase cigarettes
Drive a car
Marry without consent
Have homosexual relations
Sent to prison
Make a will
Eligible to vote
Full legal rights in contract
Buy alcohol
Buy fireworks
Be tattooed
Human Rights
Art (2) * Right to life
Art (3) * Forbidding of torture
Art (4) * Forbidding of slavery
Art (5) Right to liberty
Art (6) Right to a fair trail
Art (7) * Prohibition on retrospective criminal offences
Art (8) Right to respect for private and family life
Art (9) Freedom of thought and expression
Art (10) Freedom of expression
Art (11) Freedom of assembly and association
Art (12) Right to marry
Art (14)*Freedom from discrimination
*Are absolute, they cannot be interfered with, others can be restricted in certain circumstances (up to the government of the day).
The acts states that a public authority must act according to the rights given by the convention, any person who feels they have suffered a breach may sue that authority, as in the case of wrongful arrest or imprisonment, over the past number of years there have been many such cases of prisoners being released from prisons on these grounds, with large, often excessive as some might say, amounts of compensation paid to those released. A public authority includes courts, councils, tribunals but not parliament.
Under Article (12) Heterosexual people have the right to marry at 16 with judicial/parental consent and without consent at 18, this act enables such a union to bring with it certain safeguards, for example the rights associated with property, inheritance tax and tax relief. The security of marriage brings with it a stable family environment, and should one of the marriage die, the spouse will be safe knowing that their home will be safe under rights of inheritance. The security that heterosexual marriage brings does not apply to same sex couples or transsexuals, as, until the Civil Partnership