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View Full Version : Q18. Define legal right. Discuss the essentials of a legal right.



vustudents
09-07-2011, 12:07 AM
Q. Explain with illustration the object of legal right. (1999),(1994)
Q . Define legal right. Explain its essential characteristics.
I. Introduction:
There can be no duty without a right and according to Hibbert “a right is one person ‘s capacity of obliging others to be or forbear by means not of his own strength but by the strength of a third party. If such third parts is God, the right is Divine. If such third party is the public generally acting through opinion, the right is moral. If such third party is the state acting directly or indirectly, the right is legal.” According to salmond, every legal has some essential to qualify as legal right.
2. Definition Of Legal Right:
The term legal has been used in two senses:
I. Restricted Or Popular Senses:
(i) According to Gray:
“A legal right is that power which a man has to take a person or persons do or refrain doing a certain act or certain acts. So far as the power arises form society imposing a legal duty upon a person or persons.
(ii) According to Justice Holmes:
“A legal right is nothing but a permission to exercise certain natural power and upon certain conditions to obtain protection, or compensation by the aid public force.”
II. Wider Sense:
In a wider sense, legal right include any legally recognized interest, whether it corresponds to legal duty or not. It is a addition on benefit conferred upon a person by a rule of law.
3. Essential Characteristics Of Legal Right:
According to salmond, there are five characteristics or essential elements of legal right, though according to others, such as Keeton and Holland, there are only four characteristics, as for a title to them is only a source of a right and so not characteristic.
(i) Vested in person:
It is vested in person who is the owner of the right. He is the subject of the legal right and in sometimes described as the person of inheritance. The owner of a right need not be a determinate or fixed person. If an individual owes a duty towards society at legal, an indeterminate body is the subject of inherence.
(ii) Available against person:
It is available against a person who is bound by the correlative duty to respect that right. Such a person is called the person of incidence or the subject of the duty.

(iii) Content of right:
Another essential element of a legal right is its content or substance. It may be an ‘act which a person bound by the duty has to do or it may be ‘forbearance’ on his part in favour of the person entitled to the right.
(iv) Object of the right:
The act or forbearance relates to something which is designated the object or subject matter of the right.
(v) Title to the right:
Another essential elements of a legal is the title to the right. Facts must how the right vested in the owner of the right. That may be by purchase, gift, inheritance etc.
Illustration:
A man buys a house form another. The buyer will be the person of inherence i.e., the owner of right and the seller and the other person generally the persons of incidence i.e., persons who are under a corresponding duty. The object of the right will be the house. The contents of the right is forbearance, non-interference with the exclusive use of the house. The title to the right is the fact of the sale the of the house.
4. Objects Of The Right:
A right being a legally protected interest, the object of the right is the thing in which has his interest which he desires to take or obtain by means of the duty which the law imposes on other person.
I. Views Regarding Nature Of Object:
There is no unanimity of opinion as to whether every right must have an object or not.
(i) According to one view:
There are some writers who are of the view that there are some rights without objects. According to her the object of a right means some material thing to which it relates. In this sense, an object is not an essential element in the conception of right, and that rights can exist without and object e.g., a right to reputation.
II. Classification Of Rights According To Their Objects:
Slalomed refers to seven kinds of rights by reference to their objects.
(i) Rights over material things.
These are the most important legal rights in respect of their number and variety. Examples are one’ s right to own his car, house etc.
(ii) Right in respect of one, s own person:
A right to life, health, personal liberty and reputation fall within this class. Here the object is something immaterial.
(iii) Right of reputation:
There is also the right of reputation. By reputation we mean the good opinion that other person have about a person. A person has right not to be libeled. Such a right has obtained legal recognition and protection.
(iv) Right in respect of domestic relation:
There are rights in respect of domestic relation. Every person has an interest and in the society, affections and security of his wife and children. Here the object of the right is the affection and society of the other or by stretching the argument, the object can be the person to whose affection the owner of a right has a right to.
(v) Right in respect of other rights:
A right may have another right as its subject-matter. A Jus ad rem. There are writers like Gray who distinguish between rights to rights which can be specifically enforced and rights or rights the violation of which gives rise only to some lesser remedy.
Example:
By a promise of marriage, a woman acquires a right to be married. She acquires the right of a wife on being actually married.
(vi) Rights over immaterial property:
There are rights over immaterial property and examples of such right are the patent rights, copy-rights, trade marks etc. the object of patent rights it an invention and the copy-right is the form of expression used by the another etc.
(vii) Right to Services:
There are right to services. There rights are created by the contract between two person. Such as master and servant, physician and patient, advocate and client etc. here the object of the right is the skill-knowledge, strength, time etc.
Example:
If a physician is hired, the hirer gets a right to the use and benefit of his skill and knowledge.
5. Conclusion:
To conclude, I can say, that to qualify a legal right as a legal right, it must possess some characteristics or essential out of which one is the object of right. An object is an essential in the idea of a right. A right without an object in respect of which it exists is as impossible as a right without a subject to whom it belongs.