The Imperative of a Deeply Ingrained Liberal Political Culture to the Protection of Civil Liberties

Abstract

Civil liberties encompass a broad range of human values that bolster individual freedom and human dignity. The indispensability of vibrant civil liberties to a healthy and well-functioning society lies in the grounds that they provided for citizens to participate in the democratic process, criticize their respective governments, and hold their governments accountable. Civil liberties are not luxuries but inalienable entitlements that are essential and imperative for human development and society's socioeconomic progress. Consequently, civil liberties protection has emerged as the most fundamental and cherished human aspiration in developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries. Within the existing literature on human rights protection, it has been the conventional wisdom that effective protection of civil liberties requires the entrenchment of a Bill or the Charter of Rights in the constitution. In addition to signing or ratifying the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, almost all countries across the world have with varying degree entrenched civil liberty protection mechanisms in their respective constitutions. While constitutional protection of civil liberties is believed to be a necessary mechanism to safeguard individual rights, it can be argued that it is society’s political culture shaped by deeply ingrained liberal values and principles fostering constitutionalism, not mere written words of the constitution, that can effectively function as a bulwark against state encroachment of civil liberties.