Declaration of human and citizen's rights of the 26-8-1789
The representatives of the French people, constituted into a National Assembly, considering that ignorence, forgetting or contempt for human rights are the only causes of the public calamities and of the governments' bribery, have resolved to expose in a solemn declaration the inalienable and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, constantly present to every members of the social body, reminds them constantly their rights and their duties; so that the acts of the legislative power and those of the executive power, being able to be at every instant compared with the aim of any political institution, will be more respected; so that the complaint of the citizens, now founded on simple and incontestable principles, always turn to preservation of the constitution and to everybody's happiness. - Consequently, the National Assembly recognises and declares, in the presence of and under the omen of the Supreme Being, the following human and citizen's rights.
1st Article : Men are born free and equal in rights. Socials distinctions can only be founded on common utility.
2 : The aim of any political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are freedom, property, security and resistance to oppression.
3 : The principle of any sovereignty essentially lies in Nation. No body, no person can exercise any authority that does not expressly issues from it.
4 : Freedom consists of being able to do everything that does not harm others. So, the exercise of the natural rights of every man only has the limits that provides the other men of the society the same rights. Its limits can only be determined by law.
5 : Law has only the right to forbid the acts that are harmful to the society. Everything that is not forbidden by law cannot be prevented, and nobody can be forced to do what law does not orders.
6 : Law is the expression of the general will. All the citizens have the right to work towards its formation, personally or through their representatives. It must be the same for all the people, either protecting or punishing. All the citizens, as they are equal in its eyes, are equally eligible for any dignity, position and public employment, according to their capacity and without any dinstinction except the one of their virtues and talents.
7 : Men can be accused, arrested or detained only in the cases that have been determined by law and only in the forms that law prescribed. Those who request, send, execute or make executed arbitrary orders must be punished; but any citizen that is summoned or seized must obey at once: he becomes guilty by resisting.
8 : Law must only establish sentences strictly and obviously nessessary, and someone can only be punished in accordance with a law established and promulgated before the offence, and legally enforced.
9 : Any man being presumed innocent until he is declared guilty, if it is found essential to arrest him, any severity that would not be necessary to apprehend him must be harshly punished by law.
10 : No one can be troubled for his opinions, even religious, as soon as their expression does not disturb public order established by law.
11 : Free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious rights of man; so any citizen can freely speak, write and print except abusing of this liberty in the cases determined by law.
12 : The guarantee of human and citizen's rights need a public force; this force is therefore instituted for the advantage of everyone, not for the only utility of those to whom it is entrusted.
13 : For maintaining the public force, and for the public services expense, a common contribution is essential; it must be equally allocated into all the citizens, according to their means.
14 : Citizens have the right to contest by themselves or through their representatives the necessity of the public contribution, to follow its use, and to determine its quota, base, collection and length.
15 : Society has the right to ask to any public agent for explanations about his administration.
16 : Any society in which the guarantee of human rights is not ensured has no constitution.
17 : Private property being an inviolable and sacred right, no one can be deprived of it, except when the public necessity, legally noticed, requires it obvious, and under the condition of a fair and preliminary indemnity.
Traduction par Christophe Franco : cfranco@pobox.com
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