This article has been written by our internee Hritika Shroff, a law student from Siddharth College of Law.
ABSTRACT
Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld was a professor at Stanford University and later at Yale University, where he wrote a few Articles before his premature death in 1918. Hohfeld’s description of the relations between the Forms of legal entitlements reflects the truths on the feature of Legal rights. Hohfeldian’s analysis of different types of rights and duties is a highly Analytical Legal Theory and it is also considered a Fundamental Theory of Law. Jurisprudence or Legal Theory is the theoretical study of Law. The Analysis aims at providing a comprehensive analysis of what these rights and duties are about. Hohfeldian’s Analysis was aimed at distinguishing rights to do things from rights to have things done for or to one, and the Second only has Correlative Duties.
INTRODUCTION
Hohfeldian’s Analysis on the Forms of rights and Duties is often referred to and discussed after a long period post its formulation. As per the Hohfeldian’s Analysis, he created a very meticulous analysis that differentiated between Fundamental Legal concepts concerning Correlatives and Opposites and then identified the structure of relationships between them which progressively aided in clarifying the juridical relationship between the relevant parties. He expressed his argument with regards to the general tendency to express all legal interests in terms of Rights and Duties, which rather led to uncertainty in the interpretation of complex associations like trust, options, escrows, future interests and corporate interests etc. The Prime reason for this confusion in his view was the inaccuracy of the terminology. He further observed that legal terms like ‘Rights’ and ‘Duties’ had no agreed meaning and led to a muddled analysis.
FORMS OF RIGHTS
Hohfeld’s description of relations between various forms of Legal entitlements reflects truths on the features of Legal rights. The well-known reason why Hohfeld differentiates the types of rights and duties is that he finds that the word ‘right’ is overused and “even if the difficulty related merely to inadequacy and ambiguity of terminology, its seriousness would nevertheless be worthy of definite recognition and persistent effort toward improvement”. This terminological problem involves conceptual obscurity, so bringing it to the fore and showing the possible meanings, and the exact legal conceptions behind it would allow us to see with clarity what we refer to in the various cases: what rights and duties are. Legal rights in the wider sense are essentially based on the Hohfeldian Analysis.
There are 4 forms of rights as per the Hohfeldian Analysis
Right
Liberties
Power, and
Immunities
He further segregated these as ‘Correlatives’ and ‘Opposites’ to display a logical structure of his system.
JURAL CORRELATIVES
Jural correlatives signify something mutual, complementary reciprocal or corresponding. Jural correlatives signify two things that occur together. The jural correlatives are shown by vertical arrows.
Right and Duty Relationship
According to Hohfeld, a right is a claim or demand made by a person against another who has a duty. If a person is having a right, then another person always has a duty.
For instance, under Article 14 of the Constitution of India, a citizen has a right not to be discriminated, therefore it means that the State is under a duty to maintain equality.
Liberty and No-Right
In a situation where a person has particular liberty, then another person has no claim preventing the exercise of the liberty.
For instance, Y is running a DVD Store for many years and later X opens another DVD Store across the street then definitely due to the cutthroat competition the profits of Y may drop. Y cannot prevent X from continuing his business because Y has no claim to prevent X from doing business, which is X’s liberty indirectly his Right.
Power and Liability
Power is the ability on behalf of a person to produce a change in a given relation by doing or not doing a given act. The ‘Correlative’ of power is a liability. According to Hohfeld, a person who has power imposes corresponding liability on another person.
For instance, if an officer has the power to arrest, and a person A has committed an offence, A is under the liability to be arrested.
Immunity and Disability
Immunity denotes freedom from the power of another, while disability denotes the absence of power. According to Hohfeld, an immune person is always exempted from the legal power of some other person.
Under the Constitution of India, certain people enjoy immunities, and the President of India cannot be sued for certain civil or criminal wrongs. This is immunity from prosecution. It means prosecuting authorities are disabled to prosecute the President. It is a lack or absence of power to change legal entitlements.
For instance, Diplomats are supposed to have diplomatic immunity. If they have committed a crime in their host country, they are immune to arrest and legal prosecution.
JURAL OPPOSITES
Hohfeld’s concept of ‘Opposites’ conveys that one must have one or the other but not both of the two opposites. Jural opposite signifies that which is diametrically different in character and tendency. This means that no pair of the opposite can co-exist in the same person. Jural opposites are presented by diagonal arrows and read both ways. They cannot exist in the same person.
Right and No Claim
According to Hohfeld, if any person has a right, then there will not exist ‘no-claim’ in him. If A has a right to dispose of his property, then there will not exist “no right to dispose of the property in him”. In other words, he cannot be denied his right to dispose of the property.
Duty and Liberty
According to Hohfeld, the presence of liberty in a person means the absence of duty in that person and vice versa.
Power and Disability
Power and Disability both will not co-exist in the same person, i.e. if any person has power then he has no disability and vice versa. For example, if a partner of a firm has the power to inspect the documents of the firm, then he is not disabled to inspect the documents.
Immunity and Liability
According to Hohfeld, if any person is immune from any kind of duty, then he is not liable to do it. For example, diplomatic agents are immune from the law of the country to which they are sent on a mission. Therefore, they are not liable to pay taxes or any other duty of that country.
CONCLUSION
Hohfeld has analysed this fundamental legal concept and has schematically arranged them comprising jural correlatives and jural opposites. Hohfeld’s study has a rather favourable aspect that should not be disregarded. His method has improvised the understanding of the ideas of ‘rights’ and ‘duties’ through his deep comparisons. He has given pertinent attention to the legal implication that may arise due to the lack of specified rights and responsibilities.
The Hohfeldian model is still used as a starting point for a lot of modern rights analysis. Its importance stems primarily from the fact that it allows us to reduce every legal transaction (or moral connection) to a state of relative simplicity and clarity, as well as recognize its universality. In the final Analysis Hohfeld’s contribution to the language of rights continues to be highly valued.
REFERENCE
The American Journal of Jurisprudence
W.W. Cook, 'Hohfeld's Contribution to the Science of Law', 28 Yale Law Journal
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Jurisprudence, Legal Information Institute
Lawqedu - Jurisprudence and Legal Rights
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