Legal Argument
The basis behind the argument of the term is based on whether it should be considered just and legal for a law to be enacted that treats various parties unequally. For example, in the United States Constitution the prohibition on Bills of Attainder require that laws do not single out a single person or group of persons for specific treatment.
Another example is the equal protection clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Both sides argue that the other side is or has traditionally been singled out and therefore the law is either needed or unnecessary. In some cases, such as those with social implications, the universal definition of rights also often conflict with other, often more regional or local, laws that require certain public standards or behavior based on cultural norms.
Read more about this topic: Special Rights
Famous quotes containing the words legal and/or argument:
“There are ... two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system. On the one hand those rules of behavior which are valid according to the systems ultimate criteria of validity must be generally obeyed, and on the other hand, its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behavior by its officials.”
—H.L.A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus)
“Our argument ... will result, not upon logic by itselfthough without logic we should never have got to this pointbut upon the fortunate contingent fact that people who would take this logically possible view, after they had really imagined themselves in the other mans position, are extremely rare.”
—Richard M. Hare (b. 1919)