Bill of Rights?

[_GunneR_]

Well my question is simple,
In your opinion is it better for a nation to have a set Bill of Rights (or charter) that includes exactly what a citizen of that nation is entitled to, or
Is it more effective that the constitution contains implied rights that allow judges to interpret whether a case is valid.

I ask this becausei believe strongly in one option and would like to know what others views are especially people from a range of places.

[MoROmeTe]

Well the first situation is roughly more strict and easier to enforce than the second. You need good judges and competent interpreters of law for the second one. As I remember from history of law the French constitutionalists approached the first as being the way to go, while the Anglo-Saxon approach goes more toward the second situation that you describe.

I'd rather live in a country which let's judges interpret the basic rights and, as such, all laws, rather than somewhere where the laws tell you straight what to do or not do...

[the Black Prince]

as members of the georgian delegation said when a bill of rights for the US was debated, if we delinate set rights and lay them in stone, people in the future will interpret that as meaning that only those rights laid down exist, and no others do so...

if the bill is not subject to easy change and fluctuation with the changing nature of the society you could also end up witrh a bill that does not reflect the current attitude and status of the society with judges twisting archaic phraseology to meanings that were never intended to cover situations that never existed when the bill was drafted.

by not having a bill of rights, you enter into a situation where all your laws are prohibitive. this translates as saying that a citizen has a right to do everything that is not forbidden by law. so long as the constitution contained a line that said all citizens of the country shall at all times be treated equally, then thats really all you need...