ABSTRACT
The phrase ‘Bill of Rights’ is now used widely to refer to a document setting out ‘the liberties of the people’. It is characteristic of this type of document that it is couched in very broad terms (‘painted with a flat brush rather than etched with a jeweller’s pin’); it may list liberties to be preserved (eg, freedom of speech, religion, association) and it may provide guarantees of a general nature, but rarely outlines the mechanisms for enforcing those guarantees. The Bill may form part of a wider document which enshrines a nation’s constitution; it may stand on its own, externalising a community’s Grundnorm (see 12.7) or setting out declarations of belief which have characterised a nation’s social and legal development.
