Introduction to fundamental rights and their constitutional protection

Abstract

The notion used to refer to the rights of man, as an individual or social being, who participates or intervenes in cultural development, is that of human rights or, also, natural rights, subjective public rights, public liberties, moral rights or fundamental rights. Peces-Barba' prefers to designate them as “fundamental rights” as a more precise and appropriate linguistic form, as he points out, for the following reasons: a) It is more precise than the expression human rights and lacks the burden of ambiguity that it implies. b) It can cover the two dimensions in which human rights appear, without incurring in natural law or positivist reductionism. c) It is more adequate than the terms “natural rights or “moral rights” that formulate the concept of it without taking into account its legal-positive dimension. d) It is more appropriate than the terms "subjective public rights" or "public liberties" that can lose sight of the moral dimension, and limit the stipulation of meaning to the facet of belonging to the Order.