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January 11, 2004 

Declaration of the Rights of the Man and the Citizen, 1789

Law Desk

Inspired by some declaration of the American independence of 1776 and the philosophic spirit of the XVIIIth century, the Declaration of the rights of the Man and the Citizen of 1789 marks the end of the "Ancient Régime" and the beginning of a new era.

The Declaration of the rights of the Man and the Citizen is, with the decrees of August 4th and 11th, 1789 on the abolition of the right feudal lords, one of the fundamental texts voted by the constituent National Assembly formed following the meeting of the General States.

Adopted in its principle before July 14th, 1789, it gives place to the elaboration of numerous projects. After long debates, the representatives vote for the final text on August 26th, 1789.

It contains an introduction and 17 articles which involve capacities concerning the individual and the Nation. It defines " natural and imprescriptible" rights as the freedom, the property, the security, the resistance for the oppression. The Declaration also recognises the equality, notably in front of the law and the justice. It asserts finally the principle of the separation of the powers.

Ratified only on October 5th by Louis XVI under the pressure of the Assembly and the people run up to Versailles, it use as introduction to the first Constitution of the French Revolution, adopted in 1791. Although the Revolution denied itself, afterward, some of its principles elaborated two other declarations of the rights of the Man in 1793 and 1795, it's the text of August 26th, 1789 that became a reference for our institutions, notably in the Constitutions of 1852, 1946 and 1958.

The Declaration of 1789 inspires, in the XIXth century, similar texts in numerous countries of Europe and Latin America. The French revolutionary tradition is also present in the European Agreement of the rights of the Man signed in Rome on November 4th, 1950.

The representatives of the French people, made up as a national Assembly, considering that ignorance, the lapse of memory or the contempt of the humans right are the only causes of public misfortunes and the corruption of the governments, solved to expose, in a solemn declaration, the rights natural, inalienable and crowned of the man, so that this declaration, constantly presents to all the members of the social body, unceasingly points out their rights and their duties to them; so that the acts of the legislative power and those of the executive power, being able to be at every moment compared with the aim of any political institution, are respected of it; so that the complaints of the citizens, founded from now on simple and undeniable principles, always turn to the maintenance of the Constitution and the happiness of all.

There are 17 Articles in the declaration. The major Articles are the followings:

Article 1 - the men are born and remain free and equal in rights. The social distinctions can be founded only on the common utility.

Article 2 - The aim of any political association is the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of the man. These rights are freedom, the property, safety and resistance to oppression.

Article 3 - The principle of any sovereignty lies primarily in the Nation. No body, no individual cannot exert authority which does not emanate from it expressly.

Article 4 - Freedom consists in being able to do all that does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of each man has terminals only those which ensure the other members of the company the pleasure of these same rights. These terminals can be given only by the law.

Article 5 - The law has the right to defend only the harmful shares of the company. All that is not defended by the law cannot be prevented, and no one cannot be constrained to do what it does not order.

Article 6 - The law is the expression of the general will. All the citizens have right to contribute personally or by their representatives to his formation. It must be the same one for all, either that it protects, or that it punishes. All the citizens, being equal in these eyes, are also acceptable with all public dignities, places and employment, according to their capacity and without another distinction that their virtues and their talents.

Article 7 - No man cannot be marked, be stopped or held that in the cases determined by the law and according to forms' which it prescribed. Those which solicit, dispatch, carry out or make carry out arbitrary commands must be punished; but any citizen called or seized under the terms of the law must obey at the moment; he makes himself guilty by resistance.

Article 8 - The law should establish only sorrows strictly and obviously necessary, and no one can be punished only under the terms of one law established and promulgated before with the offence, and legally applied.

Article 9 - Any man being supposed innocent until be was declared guilty, if it is considered it essential to stop him, any rigour which would not be necessary to be ensured of its person must severly be repressed by the law.

Article 10 - No one should not be worried for his opinions, religion, provided that their demonstration does not disturb the law and order established by the law.

Article 11 - The free communication of the thoughts and the opinions is one of the most invaluable rights of the man; any citizen can thus speak, write, print freely, except answering of the abuse this freedom in the cases determined by the law.

Article 14 - The citizens have the right to note, by themselves or their representatives, the need for the public contribution, to agree it voluntarily, to follow employment of it, and to determine of it the share, the balance, covering and the duration.