Global Advanced Research Journal of Social Science (GARJSS)
December 2015 Special Issue Vol. 4(2), pp. 023-048
Copyright © 2015 Global Advanced Research Journals

Review

A new approach to fundamental social rights: social rights, democracy and citizenship

Rodrigo Garcia Schwarz

Professor of Fundamental Rights, University of Western Santa Catarina (UNOESC), Brazil.

E-mail: rgschwarz@gmail.com

Accepted 05 November, 2015

Abstract

From the point of view of democracy and citizenship, what we are seeking in this paper is to expose some of the premises for a new approach to fundamental social rights. If we think about the absolute supremacy of human life, a life that, to be understood as such, must be a life lived with dignity, we have to think about life from a material point of view and, therefore, in a priority status to the so-called “social” rights, since social rights (economic, social and cultural) address issues as basic to life and human dignity as food, health, shelter, work, education and water. With this understanding, it becomes very clear that the materiality of human dignity rests on the so-called “existential minimum”, the hard kernel of social rights, in such a way that social rights are genuine (true) fundamental human rights.  Recognition of social rights cannot be, therefore, a mere listing of good intentions on the part of the state. Social rights are fundamental rights, which are for all men, can be exercised by everyone and are essential to life and human dignity. This implies the need to address the process of trivialisation (which, in practice, strips human rights of their authority) and theoretical fragmentation of rights since the implementation of the social rights cannot be considered separately from the consolidation of democracy and citizenship itself. What we are seeking in this paper, then, is to shed light on the understanding that social rights are fundamental human rights.

Keywords: Citizenship, Democracy, Fundamental Rights, Human Rights, Social Rights.