Know Your Personal Rights

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It is imperative for citizens to know more about protecting their rights, and to do so they must fully understand them. No rational discussion on civic law is complete without mentioning of personal rights.

While there is already the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which safeguards the fundamental rights of all citizens of the world, there is a need to look at the domain of personal rights more closely.

As defined, personal rights pertain to relative rights owed to you by others. In other words, people perform a number of duties to you, including keeping you safe from harm. This is as basic as it gets, but personal rights provide an entire dimension of topics which laymen and people of the law must understand.

Here are a few facts that will help you understand what personal rights entail and what you can do to protect them:

The point on privacy

Privacy, of course, is a fundamental human right and governments are urged to do what is necessary to safeguard the identities of their citizens. Indeed, identity is something you own, to have someone use it is a clear violation of your right to privacy, regardless if that person uses your identity for good or bad.

Protecting your right to privacy is definitely a key feature of personal rights. That said, it is clear under the law that you can refuse to give your name and other personal details to any individual or organization.  This would be a bit tricky at best since there has been little to no action on organizations that track your online interactions and retrieve crucial data about you.

Free speech as fundamental

The First Amendment is very clear that the United States fosters a healthy atmosphere of religious freedom and the freedom of expression. It is anyone’s right to criticize individuals and institutions they don’t like. This, for sure, is one of the reasons the country is great. However, free speech is not always absolute, an issue that has opened up perpetual debates on the actual boundaries of political criticism and artistic freedom. What the First Amendment is your right to express your opinion without facing legal consequence from the government.

Nonetheless, free speech is still an important personal right and no one should have primacy over what you say or write. Then again, you must realize that other people reserve the right to protect themselves from defamation and slander, which means they have every right to launch a lawsuit against you.

Protection and safety

Protection as a personal right does not only include the right to shield oneself from defaming acts. There is also the question of ensuring one’s security against physical threats.

Indeed, personal injury can provide the grounds for launching a lawsuit, especially if the other party is within their means to prevent the injury. You are within your legal right to run after people who have done you harm. Before that, though, you need to look at eight important questions to ask your personal injury lawyer who is representing you in court.

Personal rights are always an important topic of discussion. It is only important for citizens to learn more about their rights in today’s political climate.