लाेकपाटी न्यूजKeshav Gharti Magar
Simply understanding, a legal right is a justified claim on others or is an entitlement which can be enforced by law. It doesn’t mean that rights are only legal but legal rights play important role in ensuring justice. 
According to Pollock, “Right is a freedom allowed and power conferred by law.” Similarly, Hibbert defines it as one person’s capacity of obliging others to do or forbear by means not of his own strength but by the strength of a third party.
As said by him, if such third party is god, the right is divine. In fact, when we analyze various definitions given by different jurists or scholars, it can be said that there are four elements in legal rights i.e. Subject, Object, Title and Matter. it means Rights are composed of these four elements and are related to one another. Anyway, in sum, the powers which we are using in our daily life conferred by law are legal rights.
As said earlier, different jurists have defined rights in their own way but we can simply understand rights as basic needs/ power which are given by law to us to run and maintain our daily activities. However, we should keep in mind that Rights are not absolute but relative. Moreover, rights in law, can be classified into various kinds such as Perfect and Imperfect rights, Positive and Negative rights, Alienable and Inalienable Rights, Rights in Rem and Rights in Personam , Proprietary and Personal rights, Legal and Equitable rights, Vested and Contingent rights , Rights in Re propria and rights in Re aliena and so on.
As right is a justified claim on others, duty is responsibility towards others. it can be defined as the legal responsibility to do something. According to Bentham, “Duties are the obligations, charges onerous to him who ought to fulfill them.” Salmond defines duty as an obligatory act that is to say; it is an act opposite of which would be a wrong. A person can be said to have a duty when he is under legal responsibility to or not to do something. Anyway, like rights, duties are also classified into many kinds i.e. Legal and moral duties, positive and negative duties, primary and secondary duties etc. In this regard, let me mention a simple example of teachers and students:
Teachers are under the responsibility of preparing lesson plans, educating and guiding their students in a proper way. They are supposed to answer students’ questions mainly related to the lesson/course. Students have rights to ask questions and teachers have duty to answer or solve the questions asked to.
Therefore, Right and Duties are like double parts of a single coin. Both always go together. They cannot be separated from one another. One’s right is duty of other. For every right, there is corresponding duty. If we have rights to study, teachers have duty to teach us. if teachers are teaching us in our classroom, we have duty to carefully listen their words/sentences and follow them. it means there must be a good bonding between teachers and students while following rights and duties properly. Similarly, If I have right to life, it is the duty of other people to respect my life and not to cause any harm to me. Likewise, if ‘A’ has the right not to be beaten then ‘B’ has the duty not to beat ‘A.’
In general, every right has a corresponding duty. there can be no right without a corresponding duty or a duty without a corresponding right. Let’s take an example of state. A state enforces rights so it becomes the duty of all citizen to be loyal to the the state. We have duty to obey the law of state because state protects our rights. This is why, we must always be ready to defend our state. For example, when our neighboring country India released their political map encroaching our place Kalapani and Lipulek, many of us objected this issue spontaneously in our own way. There was not any compulsion to do strike or take out the protest rally on this issue but we did because it is our duty to protect our country.
So, the point I want to connect here is that state not only provide us rights but also protect our rights and it is our duty in turn to defend our state. The notable thing is Right of one is related to the duty of others. For example, If I am enjoying my right, then you have the duty not to create any obstacle in my rights and If you are enjoying your right, my duty is to respect your right. So, we should know that there is a close and deep relationship between rights and duties. They are two sides of the same coin. If we have right to be educated, our duty is to make our society decent and civilized.
At last, it can be said that right and duties are related to each other. Without right there can be no duty or vice versa as there cannot be a husband without wife or a child without a mother. Therefore, we must perform our duties when we are enjoying our rights because rights and duties are correlative, co-existent, complementary and interdependent.
Writer is pursing undergraduate law degree at Lumbini Buddhist University. He can be reached at [email protected]
