Conceptualizing the Legal Capacity to Fundamental Rights

Abstract

While the capacity to have rights has been a question since people started creating states and law, having the capacity to exercise fundamental rights is a contemporary legal issue. The article focuses on the legal capacity to fundamental rights and presents an innovative proposal for the legal doctrine related to the concept of the normative constitution of fundamental rights. The authors argue that protecting fundamental rights is incomplete if uncertainties exist regarding these rights’ subjects. Due to the complexity of the problem and the relevance of the “judge-made law”, the article offers a new methodological tool: instead of building a pre-set, abstractly defined comprehensive concept, concept mapping is advocated for conceptualizing the legal capacity to fundamental rights. The concept map is an organic and beneficial way to collect and structure the interrelated factors determining legal capacity. It can be a decision-support tool for judges in fundamental right-related cases to bring well-grounded decisions. As a starting point, the authors argue that an autonomous dogmatic category of legal capacity to fundamental rights is crucial for effectively protecting rights. To support this point, the complex theoretical background (the concept of person, personality, rights and fundamental rights) is reviewed. The authors point out that existing approaches do not give an unambiguous answer to what entity and how far can be the holder of what fundamental right. The article concludes with a methodological proposal of conceptualizing by mapping to maximize the effect of knowledge on factors that influence judicial decisions in this regard.