Available in Russian
Author: Nataliya Varlamova
DOI: 10.21128/1812-7126-2023-6-146-171
Keywords: principles of law; human rights; legal norms; rules; proportionality; proportionality test; R. Dworkin; R. Alexy
The generally recognized “open nature” of human rights predetermines their understanding as principles of law. At the same time, the principles themselves can be interpreted in different ways. For the interpretation of human rights through them, the understanding of principles as a type of legal norms characterized by a high level of abstraction and allowing variability of implementation is adequate. Such a view of the principles of law is developed in the works of R. Dworkin and R. Alexy, who emphasize their moral character, possible multidirectionality, and potential conflict. However, the article substantiates a proper legal understanding of the principles of law. They are considered as purely legal requirements, ultimately going back to the principle of formal equality as equality in freedom, concretizing and developing it. This ensures the interconnectedness and consistency of all principles. Under this interpretation, human rights as principles of law express a variety of claims to a measure of freedom equally applicable to all persons, with all other principles of law being essentially designed to guarantee the proper safeguarding of human rights. The understanding of human rights as principles of law determines legal-doctrinal approaches to justifying the limits of their realization on the basis of mutual and proportionate restriction of everyone’s freedom. Principles of law, and above all human rights, are the basis for lawmaking in its formulation of rules, their judicial interpretation, and constitutional review. They limit the discretionary power of legislator and law enforcer. They allow resolution of cases on the merits even in the absence of a rule governing the particular case. In addition, the principles of law reveal the motives and ultimate reasons that justify and substantiate positive rules and judicial decisions. In the conditions of complexity and dynamism of modern social relations, it is the principles of law that allow adapting the existing rules to different situations, preserving the general sense of regulation expressed in the principle, including the social purpose of the relevant human rights, legal institutions, and legal procedures.
About the author: Nataliya Varlamova – Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.) in Law, Associate Professor, Leading Research Fellow of the Human Rights Department, Institute of State and Law, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.
Citation: Varlamova N. (2023) Prava cheloveka kak printsipy prava [Human rights as principles of law]. Sravnitel’noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 146–171. (In Russian).
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