Constitutional Rights and Their Effect on Citizenship

Even assuming an effective system of civics and citizenship education, whether people are able to exercise their role as citizens depends upon the extent to which a country’s constitution protects human rights. This chapter starts by discussing human rights theory, the way in which a bill of rights ensures protection of human rights and how the concept of proportionality is used to determine whether limitations of rights are justified. The chapter then addresses the argument that a bill of rights undermines democracy, arguing that that argument is based on a misconception of what democracy is and also fails to recognise that unrestrained democracy is inconsistent with human dignity. The remainder of the chapter discusses the right to vote, which is of specific relevance to citizenship in that for many citizens, casting a vote is the only occasion on which they participate in political processes. In the context of voting, the principle of citizen equality requires not only that each adult has a vote but that each vote is of equal effect, and this in turn depends on a country’s electoral system. The chapter compares four of the most commonly used electoral systems and determines the extent to which they satisfy the criterion of vote effectiveness and yield results that accurately reflect voter sentiment. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the effect of electoral systems on broader citizen participation in politics.