This article is written by Sayani Das from Amity Law School, Amity University, Kolkata pursuing B.B.A. LLB(H). This is an exhaustive article which deals with the nature and scope of rule of law, the legal aspect of human rights, and the analysis of the whole process of rule of law.

Introduction

The characterization of human dignity can be very well linked with law and morality. Consequently, associations between the rule of law and human dignity take steps to create the only disarray of theoretical, standardizing, and disciplinary discussions. The basic connotation of ‘rule of law’ relates to equity, justice, and good conscience. Indian Constitution is one of the one of a kind Constitutions of the world which deals with every single area of the general public. The designers of the Constitution knew about the significance of human respect and value and in this manner, they fused the word human dignity in the Preamble of the Constitution of India. 

The Constitution gave different rights for example right to equality, right to freedom, right against exploitation, right to freedom of religion, right to cultural and educational rights, right to constitutional remedy, which discusses the holiest, basic, regular, and inborn rights. Fundamental rights are ensured by the Constitution to all individuals with no discrimination. The safeguard of Fundamental Rights preserves and protects human dignity. Recently, in Naz Foundation v. Government of NCT and others, the Court saw that “The Constitutional safeguard of human dignity expects us to recognize the worth and value of all people as an individual of our society”. All citizens of India will live and appreciate a quiet, noble life with no unsettling influences.

Social equity which is the base of the Indian Constitution has its suggestions in the criminal equity framework as well. The preamble of the Indian Constitution itself clarifies that there is uniformity among all the citizens of India and that is the reasoning behind all people being equivalent under the watchful eye of the law including administrators and followers of the equivalent law. The Constitution of India likewise ensures equal justice to all the individuals of India apart from their caste and religion. Article 21 is the most fundamental and predominant in the Constitution of India. This Article is hugely utilized by the citizens as it is enforceable against the State. Each human life is valuable and beautiful. One must offer appreciation to one’s human dignity. In this way, it is all around perceived and the establishment of an ethical vision for society.

Nature and scope of the rule of law

The idea of ‘Rule of Law’ is the foundational stone on which the modern democratic society is established. For the fruitful working of the commonwealth, it is imperative that there must be the authorization of law and all agreements are dependent on law. Laws are made for the proper maintenance of the public order and also to avoid the conflicting notions of the society. One of the prime objects of making laws is to keep up lawfulness in the public eye and build up a serene situation for the advancement of the individuals. The idea of Rule of Law assumes a significant job in this procedure.

The expression “Rule of Law” is extracted from the French expression ‘La Principe de Legality‘ (the principle of legality) which refers to the rule of Government and not the rule of men. If we apply the rule of law in a broader sense, then it can be connoted that law is supreme, no individual is above the law and everybody should abide by the law of the land to the best of their capacity. The principle of Rule of Law is to protect the citizens against the arbitrary ruling of the Government. The idea of the Rule of Law is exceptionally old. In the thirteenth century Bracton, an adjudicator in the reign of Henry III in a way presented the idea of Rule of Law without naming it as Rule of Law. Edward Coke is supposed to be the originator of the idea of Rule of Law when he said that the ruler must be under God and law and hence vindicated the supremacy of law over the assumptions of the executives. 

In India, the idea of Rule of Law can be followed back to the Upanishad. It gives that Law is the King of Kings. It is more remarkable and higher than the Kings and there is nothing higher than law. By its powers, the frail will beat the solid, and equity will win. 

Yet, the credit for building up the idea of Rule of Law goes to Professor A.V. Dicey who in his exemplary book “Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution” distributed in the year 1885 had a go at building up the idea of Rule of Law. According to Dicey no man is punishable or can be legitimately made to suffer in body or goods apart from a particular breach of law set up in the conventional lawful way under the watchful eye of the Ordinary Courts of the land. This builds up the way that law is preeminent and it rejects the presence of intervention in any structure.

Dicey’s Theory of Rule of Law comprises of three fundamental principles: 

1. Absence of Arbitrary Power or Supremacy of Law: According to Dicey’s Rule of law implies the absolute supremacy of law and no man is punishable or can legally be made to suffer in body or goods unless there is a distinct breach of law established in the ordinary legal manner before the courts of the land. Dicey was of the view that all people irrespective of their position or status in the society should abide by the law. 
2. Equality before law: As per Dicey, the second principle states that there must be equal subjection of all groups of people to the basic law of the land which is administered by the ordinary courts. No man is above law and not even the Government official can claim for special courts to deal with their specific matters and they are also under a duty to obey the law of the land.
3. The Constitution is the bi-product of the ordinary law of the land: According to Dicey, in many nation’s rights, for example, the right to individual freedom, opportunity, arrest, and so forth are given by the composed Constitution of a Country. But in the case of England, these rights are a consequence of the legal choices that have emerged because of the contention between the gatherings. The constitution isn’t the source however the result of the privileges of the people. 

In any case, this rule of Dicey isn’t pertinent in India as in India we believe the Constitution to be the fundamental Grundnorm of laws from which every other law is determined.

Right to life with human dignity

The right to life is the significant and most essential right available to the citizens and the non-citizens from outside the country. Everybody has the right to life, freedom, and security of the individual. The idea of life is absurd to characterize with a certain goal in mind or a solitary word. Life can indeed be characterized experimentally, hypothetically, or even insightfully. It is additionally said that law has its natural purview over all these parts of life. As indicated by the Oxford Dictionary ‘Life’ is a condition that recognizes creatures and plants from inorganic issues, including the limit concerning reaction, development, multiplication, utilitarian action, and nonstop change before death’.

Every society has various standards to ensure human life and the nobility of the person. The right to life signifies the noteworthiness of human presence, therefore. It is broadly called the most noteworthy essential right. Our Indian Constitution guarantees in Part III Fundamental rights that are intended to ensure and protect the essential privileges of people from the infringement of the privilege of existence with human poise. The idea of the right to life with human dignity as given in Article 21 of the Constitution of India, has ensured several essential rights to the citizens and non-citizen of India. The primary goal of the Constitution framers is to advance individuals as well as social welfare. The right to life is the most valuable fundamental right among every single human right.

The Constitution has not given a particular arrangement about human dignity. The right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution of India has a more extensive meaning which incorporates the right to life with human dignity. It is the main principle without which we can’t live as an individual and incorporates each one of those parts of life which go to make a man’s life significant and worthy of life. Life isn’t just a daily existence of physical demonstration or relaxation, it doesn’t mean only animal existence, it has a lot more extensive significance which incorporates the option to live with human poise.

Article 21 gives constitutional importance to every other right listed under the Constitution of India. Justice JS Verma has stated that the right to life is a well known fundamental right and is referred to as the inalienable human right and it is not a gift of nature. Human rights are those rights that arise out of being a human in the first place. These rights have been derived from the natural law which has a backdrop of natural rights. These include the core base of few rights like form example, freedom from torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, right to choose one’s profession of religion, freedom of movement, freedom from slavery or servitude, and proper access to food and shelter.

Justice Krishna Iyer reiterated the same principle by connoting the article as protective of life and liberty and by linking the same to the Magna Carta case. This is considered to be the first document that proclaims that the Crown has legal rights and could bind the Monarch through the enforcement of such legal rights just the way it binds all the men. In the case of AK Gopalan v. the State of Madras, it was deduced that the right to life is nothing but fundamental freedom guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution of India.

The significant milestone choice which prompts the broadening of the idea of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution was on account of Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India of the word individual freedom, it covers an assortment of a lot more crucial rights i.e., right to a speedy trial, right to bail, right against torment, option to live with human pride, and so forth., and has made it mandatory on some portion of the state to satisfy on many areas the concept of life and individual freedom. It implies that life isn’t kept to a certain breaking point. Thusly nobody can deny existence without an equitable and reasonable procedure of law. This case gave another measurement to Article 21 and the summit court held that the option to live isn’t only bound to physical existence but to lead a life with structured human dignity. The significance of the right to life has been given by Justice Krishna Iyer. The right to life doesn’t imply that simple presence of life yet it must be a stately quality life. In the event of Kharak Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, the zenith court held that the articulation ‘Life’ was not constrained to real limitation or repression to jail just however something more than a minor creature presence. Under Article 21 of the Constitution is a privilege of an individual to be liberated from any limitation or infringement where legitimately or in a roundabout way forced on a person.

How does the rule of law protect human rights

Article 3 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights expresses that “Everyone has the benefit of life, opportunity, and security of people”. In 1950, the European Convention on Human Rights moreover gave Article 2 saying that “Everybody’s entitlement to life will be ensured by law. Nobody will be denied of his life purposefully spared in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a wrongdoing for which this punishment is given by law”. All these have considered an individual as a physical element and endeavored to protect him from the abundances by rulers or State without anyone else or on the other hand violators of the law. 

Notwithstanding, it is just In India that has imagined the person in entirety and strived for his total prosperity, all-round advancement, success, and opportunity from misery and endeavored to shield life from any sort of outside animosity. Our Constitution producers saw the individual past an insignificant physical element and joined Article 21 in the Indian Constitution as- “No individual will be denied his life and individual freedom except as indicated by the technique set up by law”. All together security and advancement of Indian residents, the privilege to life and individual freedom has been ensured by a Constitutional arrangement, which has gotten a most stretched out conceivable translation under the covering of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. The privilege of life and individual freedom is fundamental for the improvement of a person’s character. This privilege suggests a sensible norm of solace and conventionality. The Preeminent Court of India has fused a lot more new rights. In light of this human rights statute has been created in India. It has made ordinary citizens have an honorable life.

Human Rights and national security are now and again appeared to be chances with each other. When Govt. authorities talk about national security, their contentions rest principally upon the reason that ensuring human rights and common freedoms are now and again compliant to ensuring national security. 

The universal human rights system, shows, ordeals to which India was a signatory or confirming gathering, additionally supported the restrictions on administrative forces. Notwithstanding, the contemporary truth of Indian chief administration exhibits the shortcoming and insufficiencies of the settlements and shows. Subsequently, police, military, and para-military powers keep on abusing human rights. This issue underscores the need to build up a culture among law requirement authorities that regards human rights as a sine qua non for the conservation of law. Passing certain laws under the appearance of ensuring national security in India offers an event to inspect the human rights understanding from a sacred perspective. These laws conceded noteworthy forces to the Indian leader, therefore giving a more prominent chance to manhandle and infringe on fundamental rights.

Relationship between human dignity and legal systems

• Moral orientation 

Those worries with philosophical human studies structure a state of flight for reflection on morals. For instance, creature morals concern at times unequivocally, however consistently in any event verifiably, inquiries regarding the estimation of individuals as opposed to nonhuman creatures. Answers to such inquiries will commonly concern whether people have remaining over creatures, or whether individuals have an inward criticalness that creature creatures need. These two inquiries are questionable and the connection between them is a long way from clear. Bolstered by custom which has dominated quite a bit of our comprehension of human pride, the primary inquiry can be differently comprehended as the rise of the human species, human domain over nature, mankind as imago Dei, or as the extraordinary worth of humankind comparative with all other characteristic marvels. At the end of the day, human respect rises as opposed to human poise as human internal noteworthiness.

• Holism and anthropology

Comprehensive quality is the point of view on the human condition that accepts that mind, body, people, society, and the earth interpenetrate, and even characterize each other. In humanities, comprehensive quality attempts to incorporate all that is thought about individuals and their exercises. From a comprehensive viewpoint, endeavors to separate reality into psyche and matter segregate and pin down specific parts of a procedure that, by very nature, opposes confinement and analyzation. Comprehensive quality holds incredible intrigue for the individuals who look for a hypothesis of human instinct that is sufficiently rich to do equity to its mind-boggling topic. 

A simpler comprehension of comprehensive quality is to state that the entire is more noteworthy than the whole of its parts. Singular human living beings are not simply x percent qualities and y percent culture included. Or maybe, individuals are what they are a direct result of shared molding of qualities and culture and encounters living on the planet produces something new, something that can’t be decreased to the materials used to build it. Note that people who develop and live respectively are molded by shared social encounters and form into a vastly different individual than they would have if created in separation. 

Sally Engle Merry, an anthropologist, got a call from a radio show getting some information about an ongoing episode that occurred in Pakistan that brought about an assault of a young lady approved by a nearby ancestral committee. She disclosed to them that it was an unpardonable demonstration and that the assault was likely associated with neighborhood political battles and class contrasts. This identifies with comprehensive quality because the assault was approved by higher specialists since it is a social standard for socially higher class men to feel more enabled over ladies. This accentuates the association between human activities and their condition and society.

• Anthropology and the question of human rights

Human sciences have reasonable and pragmatic pertinence to human rights. Human rights are predicated on a hypothesis of human instinct, and anthropologists can add to this through their cross-species and culturally diverse correlations (D. Earthy colored 1991). However, perhaps the best test to all-inclusive human rights is the idea of CULTURAL RELATIVISM, which Franz Boas and different anthropologists began (Herskovits 1972) and others have reprimanded (Edgerton 1992; Hatch 1983). A few nations blamed for infringement of human rights have attempted to take cover behind social relativism and reprimanded their informers of being Western good settlers. Each culture has its thoughts regarding profound quality, however, these are generally not promptly reached out past its limits to different gatherings, not to mention planned as universals enveloping the entirety of mankind. Anthropologists can help investigate, comprehend, and intervene in the social assorted variety of thoughts regarding human rights (A Naim 1992; K. Dwyer 1991), and they can endeavor to accommodate the principal issues of all-inclusiveness versus relativity (Renteln 1990). 

At a useful level, it must be recognized that violators of human rights frequently target people and gatherings based, at any rate to some degree, on their clear organic, social, social, or etymological contrasts. Human sciences can address this circumstance as the humanistic science that archives, decipher, and praises the organic and social solidarity and a decent variety of mankind. Also, during their fieldwork anthropologists frequently have an extraordinary chance to screen and record human rights, even though they should do so discreetly due to likely threats.

Dignity, equality, and due process during the lockdown

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in its prelude perceives the inborn pride of individuals from the human family as the establishment of opportunity, equity, and harmony. The noteworthiness of nobility in the rights talk in India has been spelled out by the Supreme Court when it held that the privilege to life implied a stately life and not minor creature presence. 

It has even affirmed the assessment of the previous Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel that nobility is a factor that joins human rights into one entirety. Shockingly, the respect of residents is in effect boldly disregarded by the police, under the appearance of upholding the lockdown and it brings up the issue, how socialized is the police power? 

In Karnataka, there have been in any event two episodes of the police driving asserted violators of the lockdown, to strip. In Bangalore, a traffic police Sub Inspector was seen driving not many men to remove their shirts openly and fold it over their face as covers. So also, in Davanagere, a home watchman captured a biker and constrained him to remove his shirt and use it as a veil. 

The media workforce recorded both these episodes and they were broadcasted later, not to sentence the demonstrations yet to commend the ‘severe estimates’ taken by the police. Stripping an individual out in the open is a genuine attack on his nobility and can cause embarrassment from which he may never recuperate. It mirrors the brute in these police officers who abused the forced irregularity among them and the people in question. These cops have the right to be arraigned under Section 355 of the Indian Penal Code, which condemns the utilization of power to disrespect an individual. The media has been untrustworthy and unfeeling by broadcasting these occurrences without obscuring the essences of the people in question, and by extolling these human rights infringements. 

In the Mysore District of Karnataka, the police have turned to disgrace asserted violators of the lockdown. They were taken to the police headquarters and made to hold records on which an expression of remorse was printed. This was captured and they were coordinated to transfer the photos on their web-based life accounts! Disgracing isn’t perceived as a real discipline by any law and is a grave infringement of protection, which has been perceived as a key right by the Supreme Court. 

It may be valuable to recall that the Allahabad High Court had guided the U.P police to evacuate banners they had set up, to name and disgrace the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protestors. Disgracing his contradictory to fair treatment as the police are both the informer and the punisher, while the accused is denied a chance to protect himself in a court. Imagine a scenario where these men were out headed to buy basic products. On the off chance that, on the off chance that, the police accepted that they had no substantial motivation to be out and about, they ought to have documented an argument against them for disregarding the lockdown and followed the strategy set down in The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. Compelling individuals to hold a record with an expression of remorse printed, to shame them, pulls in Section 355 of the Indian Penal Code, similarly as stripping does. 

While the regular man risks getting beaten or embarrassed even while taking off to buy staple goods or access fundamental administrations, there have been episodes of MLAs brazenly disregarding the lockdown. On 10 April, MLA Jayaram facilitated a birthday get-together in Tumkur, Karnataka which was attended by more than 500 individuals. An FIR has been documented uniquely against 3 of his supporters and not simply the MLA regardless of overpowering proof against him. This isn’t a separate occurrence as another MLA commended the BJP’s Foundation Day with his supporters during the lockdown. 

MLA S R Srinivas was seen playing with his grandson who drove his toy vehicle in the city of Tumkur. Almost certainly, the neighborhood police have been complicit in permitting these infringements to happen, as they happened in a full open glare. It additionally brings up issues on the productivity and skill of the regions’ insight wings which should have alarmed the VIP about these infringements. These occurrences are a smear on the rule of law which is an endless supply of law and uniformity under the watchful eye of the law, the two of which are imagined in our established plan. 

This lockdown has seen equity, respect, and fair treatment being abused. It has encouraged the police to carry on like a royal power managing subjects of a settlement. Now is the ideal opportunity for sentinels, for example, the courts and Human Rights Commissions to mediate and maintain protected and human qualities.

Issues and challenges

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) pronounced that a flare-up of the viral ailment COVID-19 – first recognized in December 2019 in Wuhan, China – had arrived at the degree of a worldwide pandemic. Referring to worries with “the disturbing degrees of spread and seriousness,” the WHO called for governments to make critical and forceful moves to stop the spread of the infection. Universal human rights law ensures everybody the privilege to the most elevated achievable norm of wellbeing and commits governments to find a way to forestall dangers to general wellbeing and to give clinical consideration to the individuals who need it. Human rights law additionally perceives that with regards to genuine general wellbeing dangers and open crises compromising the life of the country, limitations on certain rights can be advocated when they have a lawful premise, are carefully essential, because of logical proof, and neither discretionary nor oppressive in an application, of constrained term, conscious of human respect, subject to survey, and proportionate to accomplish the target. 

The scale and seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic ascend to the degree of a general wellbeing danger that could legitimize limitations on specific rights, for example, those that result from the burden of isolation or separation restricting the opportunity of development. Simultaneously, cautious regard for human rights, for example, non-separation and human rights standards, for example, straightforwardness and regard for human poise can cultivate a viable reaction amid the strife and disturbance that unavoidably brings about occasions of emergency and breaking point the damages that can emerge out of the burden of excessively wide estimates that don’t meet the above measures.

Conclusion

Human Rights are supposed to be perceived. Human Rights are supposed to be unavoidable, common, and characteristic. Every single individual is supposed to be equivalent. The fundamental suppositions are that the individuals are had with sane and moral abilities which separate them from different animals on earth and in this way, they are qualified for specific rights and opportunities which different animals don’t have. The prior investigation focused on the issues of utilizing human respect in philosophical and moral ideas. The idea itself is hazy, and one significant present-day use faces the issue of trying to be interstitial inside and between regulating fields that are themselves impervious to the general concept of such interstitial ideas. All things considered, there are valid justifications why such a broad idea ought to be essential in our intuition, and hence human poise is probably going to stay a segment of regulating talk despite its risky attributes.

References

1. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Magna-Carta
2. https://iep.utm.edu/hum-dign/
3. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/culturalanthropology/chapter/holism-in-anthropology/
4. http://sumananthromaterials.blogspot.com/2010/06/anthropology-and-human-rights.html
5. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/19/human-rights-dimensions-covid-19-response
6. https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/89946/10/10_chapter%20-ii.pdf

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