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ARE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS PERSONAL?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2001

Linda Ross Meyer
Affiliation:
Quinnipiac Law School

Abstract

Professor Matthew Adler has argued that many constitutional rights are not personal moral rights, but “rights against rules” that are pragmatic and instrumental in nature.See Matthew D. Adler, Rights Against Rules: The Moral Structure of American Constitutional Law, 97 MICH. L. REV. 1 (1998); Matthew D. Adler, Personal Rights and Rule-Dependence: Can the Two Coexist?, 6 LEGAL THEORY (present issue). The reason rights are not personal, in Adler’s view, is that they are rule-dependent—the constitutionality of a statute depends not just on how it affects someone, but on what it says—its formulation of a rule. Constitutional litigants are in some cases allowed to challenge the formulation of rules, regardless of whether the error in formulation would make any difference to the way the litigant is treated. Adler argues that because the litigant would receive no different treatment whether the law is formulated correctly or not, the litigant does not suffer from the constitutional error any “personal” legal disability that would set him apart from any other citizen, and is, therefore, not enforcing a personal right. Instead, Adler believes that constitutional rights are better understood as positive-law creations that allow citizens to sue as private attorneys-general.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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