SOCIAL RIGHTS: QUESTIONS OF LEGALITY AND LEGITIMACY

Abstract

This article seeks to presents the progress in theoretical legal articulation of social rights. It underlines certain guiding ideas about them, sets out some of the most deeply rooted presuppositions and comes to valid conclusions in the field of legality and legitimacy. In the intersection between them there is a double hypothesis under which the text is examined. On one hand, a theory of fundamental rights can integrate social rights; in this sense there are no weighty theoretical reasons that justify a configuration, interpretation and protection differentiating them from other rights, with which in fact they share theoretical and structural elements. On the other hand, given certain conditions, social rights are a reasonable and just response to give a new ground to the social basis of democratic citizenship.