- While Fundamental Rights are the source of all rights, our Constitution and law offer a wider range of rights. Over the years the scope of rights has expanded. From time to time, the courts gave judgments to expand the scope of rights.
- Now school education has become a right for Indian citizens. The governments are responsible for providing free and compulsory education to all children up to the age of 14 years.
- Parliament has enacted a law giving the right to information to the citizens. We have a right to seek information from government offices.
- Recently the Supreme Court has expanded the meaning of the right to life to include the right to food.
- The right to property and right to vote in elections are important constitutional rights.
Constitution of South Africa guarantees its citizens several kinds of new rights:
- Right to privacy, so that citizens or their home cannot be searched, their phones cannot be tapped, their communication cannot be opened.
- Right to an environment that is not harmful to their health or well-being.
- Right to have access to adequate housing.
- Right to have access to health care services, sufficient food and water; no one may be refused emergency medical treatment.
Human right activists all over the world seek a set of rights as a standard of human rights. These include:
- Right to work: the opportunity to everyone to earn a livelihood by working.
- Right to safe and healthy working conditions, fair wages that can provide a decent standard of living for the workers and their families
- Right to adequate standard of living including adequate food, clothing and housing.
- Right to social security and insurance.
- Right to health: medical care during illness, special care for women during childbirth and prevention of epidemics
- Right to education: free and compulsory primary education, equal access to higher education.
