Equality before the law

Statue of Equality, Paris. Allegory of equality

Equality before the law, also known as equality under the law, equality in the eyes of the law, or legal equality, is the principle under which all people are subject to the same laws of justice (due process).[1] Law also raises important and complex issues concerning equality, fairness, and justice. There is an old saying that 'All are equal before the law.' The author Anatole France said in 1894, "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal loaves of bread."[2] The belief in equality before the law is called legal egalitarianism.

Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law."[1]

Thus, everyone must be treated equally under the law regardless of their race, gender, national origin, color, ethnicity, religion, disability, or other characteristics, without privilege, discrimination, or bias.The general guarantee of equality is provided by most of the world's national constitutions (read the provisions here), but the specifics vary widely. For example, while many constitutions guarantee equality regardless of race (read the provisions here), only a few mention the right to equality regardless of nationality (read the provisions here).

Equality before the law is one of the basic principles of liberalism.[3][4]

History

In his famous funeral oration of 431 BC, the Athenian leader Pericles discussed this concept. This may be the first known instance.

"If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way"[5]

Classical liberalism

Classical liberalism calls for equality before the law, not for equality of outcome.[3] Classical liberalism, as embraced by modern conservatives, opposes pursuing group rights at the expense of individual rights.[4] Lockean liberalism (the foundation for classical liberalism) is interpreted by others, however, as including social rights and responsibilities.[6]

Feminism

Equality before the law is a tenet of some branches of feminism. In the nineteenth century, gender equality before the law was a radical goal, but later feminist views may hold that formal legal equality is not enough to create actual and social equality between women and men. An ideal of formal equality may penalize women for failing to conform to a male norm, while an ideal of different treatment may reinforce sexist stereotypes.[7]

In 1988, prior to serving as a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote: "Generalizations about the way women or men are ... cannot guide me reliably in making decisions about particular individuals".[8] In an ACLU's Women's Rights Project in the 1970s Ginsburg challenged, in Frontiero v. Richardson, the laws that gave health service benefits to wives of servicemen but not to husbands of servicewomen.[9]There are over 150 national constitutions that currently mention equality regardless of gender (click here to explore the provisions).

Some radical feminists, however, have opposed equality before the law, because they think that it maintains the weak position of the weak.[10]

Nebraska

The phrase "Equality before the law" is the motto of the State of Nebraska and appears on its state seal.

Parricide law

Article 200 of the Criminal Code of Japan, the penalty regarding parricide, was declared unconstitutional for violating the equality under the law by the Supreme Court of Japan in 1973, as a result of the trial of the Tochigi patricide case.[11]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 7., description of the UN declaration article 7, the United Nations
  2. ↑ (France, The Red Lily, Chapter VII).
  3. 1 2 Chandran Kukathas, "Ethical Pluralism from a Classical Liberal Perspective," in The Many and the One: Religious and Secular Perspectives on Ethical Pluralism in the Modern World, ed. Richard Madsen and Tracy B. Strong, Ethikon Series in Comparative Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), 61 (ISBN 0-691-09993-6).
  4. 1 2 Mark Evans, ed., Edinburgh Companion to Contemporary Liberalism: Evidence and Experience (London: Routledge, 2001), 55 (ISBN 1-57958-339-3).
  5. ↑ Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, Written 431 B.C.E, Translated by Richard Crawley (1874), retrieved via Project Gutenberg.
  6. ↑ Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. Peter Laslett, ed., Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1960 (see "Introduction," pp. 114-26).
  7. ↑ Jaggar, Alison. (1994) "Part One: Equality. Introduction." In Living with Contradictions: Controversies in Feminist Social Ethics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
  8. ↑ Jeff Rosen, "The Book of Ruth," New Republic, August 2, 1993, p. 19.
  9. ↑ O'Dea, Suzanne. From Suffrage to the Senate: An Encyclopedia of American Women in Politics, ABC-CLIO, 1999
  10. ↑ Martha Chamallas, "Feminist Constructions of Objectivity: Multiple Perspectives in Sexual and Racial Harassment Litigation," Texas Journal of Women and the Law 1 (1992): 95, 131, 125.
  11. ↑ Dean, Meryll (2002). Japanese legal system. Routledge via Google Books. p. 535

Further reading

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