First published in 1992. A Theory of Liberty seeks to change the way we think about the American constitution. The focus of the book is the legal status of minority groups in the United States a topic at the top of the current political agenda. Arguing that minority rights were vitally important to the founding fathers, H. N. Hirsch presents an original and provocative look at issues such as affirmative action, abortion, and the rights of children, lesbians and gay men, mental patients, and the physically disabled. In an analysis which blends history, philosophy, law, and social science, Hirsch attacks both liberals who hide from history and conservatives who push for "original intent." He argues that we can remain faithful to the most basic intent of the founding fathers without losing our ability to reinterpret the Constitution against the backdrop of contemporary social "facts." Hirsch exposes the errors and hypocrisy of the current Supreme Court majority, and argues that the Constitution’s liberty can and should be interpreted to protect the rights of minority groups. Timely and controversial, this title offers a challenging look at some of America’s most basic ideological commitments, and will appeal to anyone concerned with the current state of American law or the treatment of minority groups.

The expression minority has been derived from the Latin word Minor and the suffix ity which means small in number. According to encyclopedia of Britannica minorities means group held together by ties of common descent, language, or religious faith and feeling different in these respect from the majority of the inhabitant of a given political entity. J. A. Laponce in his book The Protection To Minority. described minority as a “group of persons having different race, language or religion from that of majority of inhabitant. In the year book of Human Rights United Nations Publications 1950 minority has been described as non-dominant groups having different religion or linguistic traditions than the majority population.

This book focuses on trend-setting judgments in different parts of the world that impacted on the rights of persons belonging to minorities and Indigenous people. The cases illustrate how the judiciary has been called upon to fill out the detail of minority protection arrangements and how, in doing so, in many instances the judiciary has taken the respective countries on a course that parliament may not have been able to navigate. In this book authors from various backgrounds in the practical application of minority protection arrangements investigate the role of the judiciary in constitutional arrangements aimed at the protection of the rights of minorities and Indigenous peoples.

The role of education.

Whether federalism and subnational constitutions contribute to or undermine minority rights has long been a subject of controversy. Within the United States, the general view has been that federalism has been detrimental to minority rights. In contrast, other countries have seen federalism as crucial in safeguarding rights of ethnic and religious minorities. This volume provides the basis for a more nuanced assessment of the contributions of federalism and subnational constitutions to protecting minority rights by studying their impact in a variety of federal systems. This work explores both mature federal systems (Switzerland, United States) systems in transition (Belgium, Bosnia, Herzegovina), both quasifederal (Italy, Spain) and well-established systems (Germany), both systems with considerable homogeneity of population (Austria) and systems with extraordinary diversity (India). It also analyses the various constitutional arrangements that federal systems have devised for safeguarding minority rights and given them a voice in political deliberations.