Abstract

CIANCIARDO, Juan  and  ZAMBRANO, Pilar. The a priori of the culture of rights. Cuest. Const. [online]. 2016, n.34, pp.103-142. ISSN 1405-9193.

Rights are, without doubt, the most salient feature of contemporary legal systems. It can be argued that since the middle of last century we transit a culture of rights. Neoconstitutionalism is one among other concepts that has been used to designate and study this phenomenon. The hypothesis we intend to address in this paper is that some of the central characters of our culture of rights -here called "neoconstitutionalism"- cannot be explained consistently without an explicit reference to a sustantive o material "a priori".

We will examine in particular the connection between the assertion that there exist natural law principles of justice and the following characters of our culture of rights: a) the recognition of rights, b) the reference of state or national legal systems to supranational legal systems; c) the Constitutions as a result of a network of principles and rules; d) the principle of proportionality; e) the principle of reasonableness. While the first three characters conform the structure of any neoconstitucional practice, the two latter are features of the processes of legal reception and judicial adjudication of rights in such a legal practice.

Keywords : Human Rights; Neoconstitucionalism; Natural Law; Principles; Principle of Proportionality; Principle of Reasonableness.