The Elements of Politics

Henry Sidgwick

Chapter 2, Footnote #14
Does right imply remedy?


Some writers hold that a legal right implies that the person who is said to have the right must be able to obtain, by a legal process, redress or punishment for any violation of his right. I agree that such redress or punishment must be somehow obtainable---otherwise the rule professing to determine the right would not deserve the name of a law: but it does not seem to me necessary that the individual whose right is violated should himself have the right of suing or prosecuting the violator: it seems to me better to regard this latter as a secondary and additional right, which is ordinarily given for the better security of the first, but may in some cases be withheld. Thus I should say that a destitute pauper had a legal right to relief in England, because the poor-law officials are liable to punishment if tbey refuse him relief, though the pauper himself cannot sue or prosecute them.


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Elempol, Chapter 2 Fundamental Conceptions of Politics